


Still Waters

by Infernalitae



Category: Friday the 13th Series (Movies)
Genre: 2009 Remake, Beauty and the Beast Elements, Blood and Gore, Canon Rewrite, Developing Relationship, Eventual Sex, Eventual Smut, Explicit Language, F/M, Flowery Prose, Happy Ending, Jason Makes a Better Boyfriend, Jason is Just a Big Cinnamon Roll, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Alternating, POV Third Person, Semi-supernatural, Sexual Inexperience, Sexual Tension, Sexually Experienced Female Lead, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Swearing, Trauma, Undead Jason, Violence, Whitney is essentially an OC, bad boys who are good boys, everyone's in denial
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2019-09-11 23:36:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 136,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16862116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Infernalitae/pseuds/Infernalitae
Summary: In the beginning Whitney Miller had been just one more screaming, frightened human doomed to die. Had it not been for her resemblance to a dead woman, she, too, would have joined the faceless masses in a forest of bones. She was not his mother, yet still he stayed his hand until all resemblance faded and luck became something else entirely.Dedicated to TrilliumWoods for dragging me into Crystal Lake with her.





	1. In the woods Somewhere

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TrilliumWoods](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrilliumWoods/gifts).



> Greetings, reader! I very recently was introduced to the Friday the 13th movies and became an instant fangirl for reasons that I’m sure you understand if you’re reading this. This fic is based primarily on the 2009 remake for a number of reasons, the foremost is the utter wasted potential of the kidnapping part of the plotline. Whether you feel it in character for Jason to have done it or not, I think you’ll probably agree it was a waste. I have been STRONGLY compelled by my crazy brain to fix it, and fix it I shall.
> 
> Now, I hate basically every person in this goddamn movie aside from Jason, who is a sweet precious cinnamon roll (fight me), including Whitney. I don’t care how big a chickenshit (aka rational human) you are, after six weeks of being fed and taken care of and not hurt this girl should not still be freaking out the way she does. She’s like every bad horror scream queen stereotype and I just can’t. So. My version of Whitney is basically an OC in that she’s going to be very different…in as much as I can make her different when all we really see is how she freaks out and runs away. As you’ll see in this first chapter.
> 
> I have a pretty defined plan for this story, so while there might be an update delay here or there depending on time, this is not going to be one of those four-or-so-chapters-and-forever-incomplete monsters. I’m not positive on the exact number of chapters, or how exactly the POV is going to fall – but I know it will alternate between Whitney and Jason, and it will be finished. 
> 
> Oh. And yes, there will be smut. 
> 
> Enjoy, fellow fangirls!

 

* * *

 

**Day 2**

Whitney paused to flex her hand, trying to coax the pins and needles to ease where they stung all the way down to her fingertips. She allowed herself a few seconds of this, rotating her hand back and forth. The movement caused the chains to clank in a muted reminder of the precarious nature of her situation – as if she needed one. As if she wasn’t staring at the metal cuffs locked in place about her wrists.

Bending her hand down at the wrist she set the edge of the manacle to the wall behind her and set to work again.

_Scritchscritchscritch._

The angle was awkward, and her hand was already complaining again. It was slow going – whatever rock formed the wall at the back of her corner was tough enough that even the sharp metal edge of the manacle required repeated and significant force to penetrate the surface. But she didn’t stop until she was done and there was a small line scratched into the rock. One down. One more to go. One for each day she had been trapped down here.

The phrase _hell hole_ crossed her mind in a flash of humor as dark as her mood. It wasn’t inaccurate, either. She was in a literal hole under the ground where the air was stale and smelled of earth and metal and gasoline, chained to a wall, at the mercy of a killer. If that couldn’t be described as hellish, she didn’t know what could.

As far as she could tell she had been deposited within a cavernous space that might have started out as a shallow basement. It was certainly far too deep and expansive for any crawlspace. This didn’t explain the odd twists and niches, the passageways leading off in other directions, nor the panel of metal mesh that served as the second wall to her corner. It was far more like a rabbit warren than any basement she had ever seen, and the metal grating, tools, and bits of machinery she could see scattered about the rest of the seemingly random piles of stuff were enough to think it was something else entirely. She’d heard there was an old abandoned coal mine out here, long abandoned in the mountains and the woods. Perhaps this was it, connected via digging to the space beneath the house.

The house.

Knowing what she did now, she would never have let Mike drag her inside. She had known before she even set foot inside the crumbling, ramshackle building that they were trespassing onto something they should not – that the ghosts that lined the cluttered rooms like dust would not take kindly to being disturbed. It had felt wrong, disrespectful in the highest sense. Like encroaching on a grave, the site of some horrific, unnamed tragedy. Still she had let Mike lead her inside to investigate.

Why? Why had she gone with him? Had it been because she simply didn’t want to be left outside alone? Or had it been to appease yet another subtle dig at her nonexistent _sense of adventure?_ She wished she had refused, threatened to leave without him, or else just done it. Done something _– anything_ – else. She wished she had never come on this trip, never laid eyes on that creepy, sleeping horror of a house. The house where Mike might still be somewhere, broken, pulled apart, blood pooled around him in a still mirror of the life that had left his eyes.

Oh god, this was actually happening. It wasn’t some awful vivid dream from which she could wake. This was reality. She wasn’t even supposed to be here. She should be at home taking care of mom and studying for her exams…but she wasn’t.

Forcing in a measured breath, Whitney set her cuff back to the wall to begin on another tally. From what she could calculate down here with only faint rays of light to go on she had been down here for at least two days including that night.

_No._

No, she didn’t want to think of that night. Focus on the metal scraping rock, the ache at her wrists or in her belly. Anything else. Keeping track of time would keep her busy, keep her from going insane. Or so she told herself.

The scrape and creak of old wood caught her ear, followed by an unmistakable thump of weight upon earth, and every strand of muscle in her body went tense.

Hurriedly she scrambled away from her tally wall, pressing her back into the corner until she could feel the pattern of the mesh pressing through her shirt. Her hands curled into her chest, as if to form a barrier to the organs that lay beneath, the heart that beat so hard into her ribs that they hurt. Or perhaps just to minimize the tremor beginning anew in her limbs, radiating outward from the cold clench of terror in her belly. Because death was coming.

 _He_ was coming.

She remembered the unease she had felt at Wade’s retelling of the events of the Crystal Lake camp, the chill that had swept through her, raising gooseflesh across her skin. The fine, tiny hairs at the back of her neck had stood on end as though a chip of ice had been dropped down the back of her shirt. Ghost stories had never been up her alley. Between the covers of a book when tucked inside on a rainy day, maybe, but not in the middle of the woods not half a mile from the abandoned campground not long ago touched by tragedy.

When Mike had teased her about being spooked she had laughed it off, but deep down she had known it wasn’t just the guilt and discomfort of being away from her mom that had her itching to leave. She hadn’t been able to articulate what it was that was making her feel so jittery and off and so hadn’t tried. It had been the sole reason she’d let him talk her down enough to stay. Because grief and stress did things to the mind, and she had had no solid reasons to back up the ominous feeling that had been lingering over her since the sun had set. And she’d actually managed to trick herself into believing it for a little while. Until they had come across the dirt road, the weather-worn wooden sign, and the feeling had risen up again like bile: a deep, black dread that from that moment on she had not been able to shake. The feeling of eyes in the dark, watching. Waiting.

She wasn’t sure what changed: the weight of the air, the heavy lay of the shadows in the cavernous space, just that something did. Not half a second before the man – her _captor_ – appeared.

For a moment she didn't see him. Not in the now. She saw then: the blade stabbing up through the creaking floorboards, slicing through Mike's foot, his leg, as he gave startled, garbled yells. She saw the arm bursting through the old wood as though it were rotten in earnest, not simply aged and un-cared for. The head wrapped in stained, filthy cloth like something out of a nightmare lifting from the dark. A massive hand seizing him, dragging him down into hell as he bid her to run in a gurgling shriek as he was pulled apart.

Whitney had still been in shock by the time she’d made it back to camp, half convinced that perhaps it had been some kind of joke. A cruel joke - and one in response to which she would have left immediately - but a joke. That was, until she had seen the reddened, blistered form of Amanda. The other girl had been lying half in and half out of the fire pit having fallen from where she appeared to have been strung up in a sleeping bag to cook like a foil packet, her skin melting, clothing charred to her flesh. The sight of it had been a slow, surreal horror, but the smell…she would remember that smell for the rest of her likely very short life. Burned hair and meat and chemicals all bound together by the dry, overpowering aura of woodsmoke. She would have vomited for certain had she been given any more time to process what she was looking at. But she hadn’t, for Richie had been alive and screaming at her, leg clamped in the teeth of a fucking _bear trap_. Cut down to the bone.

When she thought about it, she could still feel the metal beneath her hands; slick and slippery with blood, the fine shards of bone that flaked away as she did her best to pry apart the jaws of the trap to free him. She could remember the look on his face, the meaty crack like a melon being cracked in two, when she had looked up to see the blade of the machete buried so deep in his skull that it had split between the eyes and nearly to the bridge of the nose.

That had been the exact moment she knew she was neither dreaming nor being outlandishly and cruelly pranked. That moment as she had scrambled backward on all fours and scraped her palms open on the rocks, screaming and sobbing as the hulking beast of a man planted a booted foot against Richie's face and shoved to free his blade. And in that moment all she had been able to think of was the story told by firelight, half for fun, half to scare.

" _He came back,_ " Wade had said, and she had seen the dirty, faded sign hanging over the broken down fence and knew. Saw the cluttered, dust-laden bedroom of a long-dead child, the name lovingly carved into the headboard, and knew.

The feeling of dread, the sensation of eyes following them through the trees – they had not been nothing.

She remembered marveling at the sheer size of him – taller than any man she had ever set eyes on and far, far broader. A veritable giant from her position scrambling backward in the dirt. Horror and awe bubbled at the back of her throat, mixing with her terror. Then he had come at her, bearing down on her like some great titan of blood and vengeance. His arm arced up and back, blade gleaming black in the firelight – wet with Richie's blood – and she had known without doubt that she was alone and that she was staring into the face of her own death. She had seen the glint of light on metal, felt the soft brush of air against her face as the blade sliced through the air...and then nothing.

She had blinked through the tears veiling her vision she found the edge of the blade a hair's breadth away from slicing into her cheek.

He had frozen, his entire towering frame gone still as stone. Her surprised had been muted by the terror but she remembered peering up at him, breathless, taking in the heavy, tattered coat, the broad hand gripping the handle of the blade. A piece of sackcloth or sheeting had been wrapped about his head like a shroud, concealing his face entirely but for the hole through which a single eye glittered – and though it was wreathed in shadow she swore she had seen the rage. The empty, soulless fury burning like black coals as he stared down at her. Yet as she stared back, her heart vibrating in her chest like a trapped bird, she would have sworn the fury ebbed, fading into something like...shock?

She didn't know how long they had stayed there, locked in the impasse, as she processed the fact that all along there had been a psychopath stalking them in the woods. But the next thing she knew he was swinging the blade away from her face, slipping it into the holster strapped to one powerful leg. He had bent, seizing her around the middle and lifting her straight from the ground as she screeched and struck out with a sudden burst of all new terror. Ignoring her cries of _“no!”_ he hauled her over his shoulder like a sack of flour and started off, back toward the direction from which she had fled.

While she would have liked to think she hadn't made it easy for him, she knew better. She had thrashed and kicked and clawed like a wet cat, screaming all the while – even though she knew there was no one to help her. He had carried her as though she were made of pillow fluff, not bone and flesh, one arm wrapped firmly about her legs as she dangled there struggling uselessly. _Carried_ her all the way from the makeshift campground and across the old bridge and through the trees without any sign of strain or exhaustion, or even a heavy breath, and without seeming to give a single damn about her efforts to fight her way free.

 _"No, please,"_ she had begged as he towed her back to the decrepit house. _"Please, let me go!"_

There was no response. He merely pulled her down through an opening in the floor, as she screamed and sobbed, as she clawed at the wooden frame, as she clung there before he removed her hands and pushed her resolutely on into the tunnel underneath.

There he had chained her, and there she had been.

He came around the corner from the passageway which led to the trapdoor: a great, hulking shadow emerging from the blackness beyond until he stepped through one of the watery ribbons of light struggling in through the holes in the floor above them. Fear flickered through her, a crackle of ice darting down to her toes as he approached, moving with a silence that seemed ill-suited to a man so large. And _god,_ but he was large. Tall and broad and thick with muscle.

She had felt the slope of his shoulder lodged beneath her belly, the flex of an arm like a python about her thighs as she had kicked at him. The shirt he wore – once white, perhaps, or gray – draped a deep, solid chest. The work pants were lose and nearly colorless, but they, and the straps that held the machete in place at his thigh, did enough to prove that his legs were no less powerful. She could see just the base of his neck in the gap between shirt collar and the sack mask, and while the skin looked a bit odd the lines of muscle and tendon there were prominent. His hands alone were nearly twice the size of her own, the palms wide and fingers long.

In one of these she noticed he held a bowl, and she realized he must be bringing her food as he had done earlier. And the day before. Something cold and lumpy in another deep ceramic bowl with a metal spoon sticking out. She hadn’t touched any of it – not because she thought he would go through the effort of bringing her all the way here just to feed her rat poison, but because to eat what he brought her felt like an acceptance of how things were when she very much did _not_ accept it.

She watched him narrowly as he sank into a crouch beside her little makeshift bed nest. He was angling his head to look at the bowl he had left for her earlier: still untouched as the one before it had been, and his shoulders seemed to lower just the tiniest bit, as if in disappointment.

That confused her.

Why disappointment? Why not anger? Why didn't he force the stuff down her throat if he wanted her alive as he seemed to, since he kept bringing more food for her to spurn. Yet he had only come down the three times since bringing her. He brought food, checked her water (which she had refused to drink, again, out of principle) and left her to the dark and to the nightmares burned into her mind. Which brought her to the much more important question she had been asking herself since he’d locked the manacles about her wrists: what did he want her for?

He hadn't hurt her, had barely even touched her since situating her in her little corner. In fact, she was fairly certain he hadn't planned to take a captive. When she had first blinked through the darkness of the cavern room there had been no signs he'd meant to bring someone back with him. He had chained her first, forcing her wrists into the old fashioned pair of handcuffs and padlocking her to the rock wall before proceeding to bustle up and down from the trapdoor into the house and back with various objects. The little mattress, the bedding, the crate turned upside down to create a table, the gallon bottles of drinking water, unopened and still sealed – arranging the little space as she watched, paralyzed with her fear. The fact that she had been intended to die with everyone else was no comfort to her. Something had changed his mind, and the sheer range of possible reasons for this was staggering, each worse than the last. A brutal death might have been far better than what awaited her here.

“What do you want with me?” she found herself whispering, almost under her breath. But he'd heard her. She saw his visible eye flick to her face before lowering back to the table to exchange the untouched food for the fresh bowl.

It wasn't the first time she'd asked. She had all but screamed herself hoarse as she’d demanded an answer, over and over from between choking sobs throughout that first day. The response was the same. He didn’t speak. Hadn’t spoken a single word, uttered a single sound since dragging her here. Merely remained a silent behemoth of intent she couldn’t guess.

Her lips parted again, readying a simple _please,_ and immediately bit her tongue. There was no point in pleading for her life. He either meant to hurt her or he didn’t and there was nothing any amount of crying, begging, or screaming was going to do to change it.

Without so much as acknowledging she had spoken he rose, becoming once more a tower of menace made flesh, and turned to go.

She didn't know what made her do it. The exhaustion of two days spent in a constant state of fear, the culmination of hunger and weariness and stress, the frustration of being simply kept there without knowing why – or perhaps all of it. Her body simply moved of its own accord, seizing the new bowl of cold sludge in both manacled hands and hurling it across the room where it smashed, an explosion of broken crockery against the rock. And regretted it instantly.

He stilled, head swiveling to regard her over one shoulder with that single eye. Setting the other bowl down on the work table piled high with half-rusted tools he started back toward her as panic rushed in to wash away the burst of rebellion.

“I’m sorry,” she blurted, holding her hands up, palms out in a gesture of defensive surrender. “ _I’m sorry,_ I didn’t mean—”

He crossed the floor in three long strides as she shrank, folding in on herself to create a smaller target. Yet for all the violent retribution she expected in payment for her moment of fight, she received none. He simply seized her by the forearms and pressed her hands down into her lap.

There was no real force in it. It was more as if he were correcting her as one might have a stubborn puppy, and the look he shot her with that single dark eye read quite clearly: _Don’t do it again._ He held her there for what felt like a small eternity, then released her. Tapping the side of the nearest water jug twice with two fingers as if telling her to drink it, he rose a second time and left her, taking the bowl from that morning with him.

She sat there for a moment, stunned, her heart in her throat. Ten shallow breaths later, or perhaps twenty, she picked up the jug, clumsily twisted off the cap, and lifted it to her mouth.

Her empty belly pinched at the sudden introduction of liquid, and she regretted throwing away the food. It had been a stupid thing to do – testing the limits of a murderous psycho who had clearly heard the story surrounding these parts and decided to spend his time stalking campers in the woods like the drowned boy turned ghost of the legends. So incredibly stupid. About as stupid as refusing to eat when keeping up her strength was all she had.

No one was looking for her. They had left no specific destination, and had hiked in. There was no car within ten miles to trace, to even hint where they had gone. She was the only one who could save herself, and she couldn’t do that if she was weak and dehydrated.

The next time he came with food – and she dearly hoped he would, that the ill-advised moment of rebellion hadn’t discouraged him – she would sit there meekly and eat it like a good prisoner. And then she was going to get the hell out of there.

~*~


	2. Bury

 

* * *

 

**Day 3**

Jason dreamed of his death.

He dreamed the dark water rose up around him, enveloped him in its cold, crushing embrace. He dreamed he fought it, struggling against the current which seized him with a python's grip, pinning down his limbs – his chest. Water filled his mouth, dark and cold and flooding, tasting algae and fish skin and mud as it dragged him down like a belly full of stones. He dreamed the jeering, pointing fingers, the screams and laughter muffled by the deafening rush of the water in his ears, his skull, his brain. He dreamed, and then he woke in daze of old and sour fear, sweat pooling in the crevices of joints and the hollow of his throat.

He didn’t often dream anymore. The years seemed to have eaten away at that part of his mind, eroding it like so much soil upon a riverbank. But then, he didn’t sleep much anymore either.

He had relived the day of his death so many times that it no longer felt like memory. Memories were supposed to fade over time. They were supposed to curl and brown at the edges, take on a yellowish patina of age and gloss over. The details were supposed to fog over, blur, no longer easy to discern. Memories did not haunt in clarity.

He had no idea how or why he had lived. He remembered the water, the sensation of it filling every space in his body – veins and organs and cells, soaking into the marrow of his bones. He remembered the blackness. He remembered that no one had saved him. He remembered waking, whole and breathing…and utterly confused.

Was he a ghost? He wasn't really sure. He supposed ghosts didn't eat or sleep or do much thinking outside of whatever ghostly things they did. Yet it would not have surprised him if he was.

He sat up, straightening limbs from where they had curled to fit atop the bed now far too small for his frame, and set aside the bear. It was a ragged thing, the bear; its once velvety-soft fur clumped with dirt and dust. One button eye was missing, and a seam at its side had split, and every once in a while he had to push the stuffing back inside to keep it from spilling out. Tucking it carefully back into place upon the lumpy pillow, he rose with a creak of old wood.

Slipping the machete into its holster he made his way through the grimy halls to the kitchen, selecting an empty bowl and a spoon from the open drawers and brushing off the dust. It was the last clean bowl, at least until he had a chance to take it the other one to the camp and wash it. The third lay in a shattered mess down below.

The trapdoor opened on silent hinges with a faint tug, and Jason stepped down into the dark.

He had found the tunnels by accident, nearly falling in through a collapsing roof. They had been left over by the mining company long before there had ever been a camp in the area. But it had been he who had deepened the crawlspace beneath his mother's house, dug through the collapsed sections to create new passageways and connected them with the preexisting tunnels. They served his needs not only for secrecy, but for storage and stealth, and as a means of quick travel through his land. They were home. The only home he had left.

Closing the trapdoor behind him, he turned down a passageway immediately to his right into the wide niche which served as a storage space. There was little order to the contents there: metal sheeting lay stacked to one side next to crates of sprouting potatoes, several gas and electric lanterns, folded tarps, coils of rope, bags of grain and of sawdust, and other such things lay in random heaps and piles. Shelves packed with what must have been several years’ worth of canned goods lined one rough wall, and it was to these he went. Selecting a can at random he studied it for a moment, his one eye narrowing as he considered, then turned back to the main tunnel.

The close space smelled of earth and old wood, the tang of metal, the faint sharpness of kerosene. Safe smells, familiar smells. Yet now there was a new scent amidst the others; warm, faintly floral in the way of summer grass, beneath which was something salty-sweet and musky. Sweat and skin. _Her_ skin.

He followed the slow descent of the passage, letting his steps fall heavy as he approached the shallow set of stairs at the top of the cavern. He didn’t want to startle her. If he did, she might scream some more, and he would much rather that she didn’t.

Her eyes were already fixed on the steps when he entered, wide in her pale face, and he felt the pang at the sight of her – the sharp throb of confusion and yearning in his chest.

He knew what was whispered about him, around stoves and campfires, throughout the nearest town. He knew what they called him, what they thought he was. Slow, stupid, insane. The deformed undead monster. The same snide insults they had used when he was a boy. But he was not stupid, he was not delusional. So when he had seen his mother’s face staring up at him from the ground, crouched behind the single slim hand lifted in a wordless plea for mercy, he had felt a chill ripple down his spine. It couldn’t be her. She was dead, gone. _Buried._ Wasn’t she? That was what he’d believed…

He heard the slithering rattle of the chain across the hard-packed dirt floor as the girl shifted, drawing her knees in, folding her arms close to her chest. Making herself small.

So many humans had lost the instincts to survive. They no longer listened for danger when the trees grew still, when the wind quieted and stole the voices of frogs or birds. They no longer searched the dark for the eyes that stalked them from beyond their fires. They assumed they were untouchable, the pinnacle of natural order.

 _She_ had not. He remembered that very clearly.

The group had split, and as he had circled them, taking stock of how many there were he recalled hearing her voice as she and the boy she’d been walking with had approached the old camp entrance. She had taken one look at the half-rotten sign, the trampled fencing, and declared that she didn’t want to enter. Smart girl. The boy should have listened to her. She should have left him to his fate and ran. Not that it would have mattered. They were already trespassers, and they could not be allowed to live.

_“They must be punished, Jason. For what they did to you. For what they did to me.”_

It had been raining that night; a mild summer storm, wet and wild. The wind turned the rain to a thousand tiny knives to slice the skin, thunder and lightning splitting open the sky as if the old pain and rekindled rage had summoned it – paid for by tithe of blood and death. That night when he had opened his eyes and lungs and breathed again. It had been a riot of noise and light, his ears ringing and his heart hammering so fast that he’d thought it would burst right out of his chest. He had struggled upright, blinking the water and bright spots from his eyes, and saw. The clash by the docks, the swing of the blade, the body falling – head rolling. The lifeless face streaked with mud, cradled in his hands. Dead, gone.

_Mother._

A year later, when the fury and loss had strengthened him, he’d tracked down the girl that had killed her. He’d tracked her to her home, cut off her head in vengeance, and vowed that anyone who set foot on the land his mother had died to preserve would pay the tithe. In blood, and death.

_“Kill for Mother, Jason.”_

And he had.

He was his mother’s son: the guardian of her memory, guardian of this land. Executioner to any and all who dared to encroach upon their home, defile her memory, and desecrate the earth – everything he had and everything he was. He had spent his life mastering his environment. He knew this land like the back of his own hand, understood his purpose as it had become. He was utterly in control. Until very suddenly he had not been. Until he had raised his blade to wreak his vengeance on this, the last of them, and found himself powerless to strike.

Pausing, he set bowl, spoon, and can upon the cluttered table. He heard her sharp intake of breath as he unsheathed the machete, and he wished he had a way to calm her. He didn’t know how to tell her he meant her no harm – at least for the time being – that he simply meant her to watch him open the can.

Her repeated refusal to eat had left him wondering whether she thought the food inedible. Perhaps if he were to open it in front of her she would see it was fine and eat. With a quick, deft motion he sliced the top from the cylinder, careful to angle his body so she could see. Then, very deliberately, he set the weapon down on the table and left it there as he brought the dishes and her meal – something red and chunky with bits of white that smelled vaguely familiar, like an old, half-misplaced memory. She shuffled backward as he approached, pressing herself back against the wall, and he kept his distance as he crouched down on the other side of the overturned crate to set down the bowl.

Her eyes were rapt, flicking from him to the empty dish, a faint crease between her brows. Again he felt the pang of familiarity and longing. Swiftly followed by a discomforting uncertainty. Shoving it back, he emptied the contents of the can into the bowl, pushing it slightly toward her. Then, sitting back on his heels, he waited, hoping.

She swallowed. He could see her throat work, a quick bob of motion: she was hungry. Of course she was – she had been down here for two days and a night without sustenance. She had, he noticed, drunk some of the water he’d left her, at least a third of one jug. That was good, at least. For a few measured seconds she simply stared at the bowl. After a measured breath, however, very slowly, she uncurled her hands from where they had been pressed against her chest to reach for the food.

She was clumsy with her bound hands, balancing the bowl between one and the edge of the crate while using the other to work the spoon. He frowned, wishing he hadn't had to restrain her. Given a choice, he would not have. He knew what it was like to be bound up in the dark, afraid and unable to move, certain no one was going to help. It had only been the once, but he remembered all too clearly. If only he could trust her not to run...but he couldn't. Still, she managed one bite, then another, by lowering her head to the spoon. Her face twisted as she chewed, her swallows labored. Evidently whatever he’d brought her was less than appetizing. But she ate at least half the contents before setting the bowl back down and folding her arms back into place like a shield before her. She looked very young, and very, _very_ like his mother.

The resemblance was not exact: he could see that. He had no idea how many hours he had spent studying the picture in the locket mother had carried. The image in it had depicted her as a young woman, long before Jason had ever known her, yet he’d stared so long at it that the details had come to linger in his mind as though etched there. The nose was wrong, as was the set of the eyes. But the dark hair, the high forehead and fine brows, the graceful bone structure…something there had called to something deep inside him, and stayed his hand.

The image had been so vivid, and in spite of the occasional burst of recognition the certainty of before evaded him when he looked at her. He wondered if he wasn’t simply hoping for that clarity, that vivid image, just once more.

“Um…”

He blinked, vision clearing in time to see the girl flinch as if at the sound of her own voice. He regarded her, waiting, and noticed the way she was sitting, with an odd stiffness that hadn’t been there before.

“I—” she began again, wetting her lips briefly, “I need to…”

She made a vague gesture toward her abdomen, and he understood. Of course. Someone who ate and drank more often that he did would subsequently need to relieve themselves more frequently.

Leaning forward, he ignored her cringe away as he reached to the padlock attaching her chain to the iron ring set into the rock, extracting the key from an inner coat pocket. With a muted click it released and he pulled the chain free. He stood, gesturing for her to follow. Needing no further urging she scrambled unsteadily to her feet as he headed back toward the tunnel mouth and the trapdoor beyond.

He exited first, pushing the wooden door open with a flutter of leaves and dirt. Wrapping the end of the chain twice about one hand he lifted himself out before pivoting to reach down for her. She shuffled backward half a step, uncertain, and he could almost see the needs of her bladder warring with her desire for him not to touch her. He simply waited until she relented, moving back within range. His hands tucked beneath her arms, slim and soft, and hoisted her up onto the floor with a rattle of metal links. She had automatically braced her bound hands against his shoulder as if afraid of being dropped. The instant her feet met peeling wood she stepped away, clasping her hands tight to her chest as he led her out through the dilapidated hall and outside.

It was nearly noon, the summer sun high in the sky and beating down upon the earth. The air pressed against the nose and mouth, suffocating even as the lungs dragged in oxygen. The girl made a small sound behind him, a kind of wordless choke he assumed must be in regards to the heat. He didn't feel it as she surely did, but he was grateful that at least it was cool underground with the house and tree cover to serve as a buffer. He would be sure not to keep her out for too long. Maybe once the sun went down and the breeze carried across the lake he would bring her up again just to be outside, to walk around a bit when the air was cooler.

He led her down the overgrown path toward the campground, doing his best to pick a route mostly free of larger obstacles such as felled branches, protruding roots, and the like, and careful to keep his stride shorter so as not to end up dragging her in his wake. The effort proved necessary, as she seemed determined to keep as much space between them as possible. He took her along the route that passed through the campground proper, leading her around the front of the long-deserted cabins so she could see the lake. He had no desire to look at it, but he understood that she did not share his trauma and therefore his dislike. She very well might have gone swimming in said lake had he given her group enough time to reach it. He thought maybe the sight of it, glittering prettily in the sunlight, might bring her some manner of ease.

The building which housed toilets and shower facilities was a short distance behind the cabins themselves at the top of a small rise. There was no door, only two open archways set at each end of the long rectangle separated by a short dividing wall, and he led her to the far-most side where the sign marked it as being the one for women. He had never used the bathroom here himself. He rarely had need of it, and when he did have need it was far less bother to simply see to it in the woods as the animals did. That he did not expect of her. He was determined to see to her comfort, and the very least he could do was give her this.

Gesturing for her hands, he extracted the key to the cuffs from the coat pocket. Her brow furrowed, skeptical, though she offered her hands for him to undo the lock and release the right one. An odd combination of comprehension, gratitude, and dislike sparked in her eyes, and for a moment he felt an unexpected prickle of guilt.

Unwrapping the length of chain from when he'd looped it around his hand, he nodded toward the doorway, turning so that his back was to the dividing wall. At first she didn't move, as if torn, until again the needs of her body outweighed everything else.

The chain slithered along the ground, uncoiling as she walked inside, and it occurred to him that the length might not be sufficient. He felt the precise moment when she stopped, and was grateful he hadn’t had to come up with a solution to that particular problem. He waited patiently, watching a pair of squirrels race up and down the base of a gnarled old tree, quarreling in their raucous, chittering language over some insult or morsel of food.

He heard the rush of water; once quick and brief, a second time a steady flow lasting a number of seconds broken by movement. The dragging scrape of metal against cement reached him as she rounded the corner.

Angling his head to look at her he saw several feet of chain gathered in her free hand, the hint of wildness in her brown eyes as they met his unveiled one. For the first time he saw the hint of green in them, soft and woodsy like new moss. Her hands clenched about the loops of chain. Then, like a deer at the snap of a twig, she bolted.

He felt the slide of the heavy links through his fingers, the pull of her delicate weight as she fled - a darting pale shape against all the green. And he opened his hand.

*

She didn't make it far.

She should have been grateful: he could have simply led her out into the woods and made her squat behind a tree, if he deigned to grant her privacy at all. Yet even the small comforts of toilet paper and a flush felt like rubbing the freedom she no longer had in her face. She had not been grateful in the moment. She had been angry and afraid, neither of which was conducive to making the best decisions.

In spite of her proclivity for more sedentary pastimes such as wedging her nose in a book for hours on end, Whitney was a decent runner. It was how she and Mike had met, after all, on the track field – though she had been there merely for the exercise while he had been doing drills with his soccer team, and quite possibly assumed she was more into the activity than she truly was. Yet even now that she wasn't a sobbing, staggering mess, her hope was small. She was exhausted from lack of sleep and a lack of nourishment, in a strange environment wearing bad shoes, and in no way at her best. But when she had seen the bright sliver of opportunity, she'd had to take it.

Her feet pounded against earth and grass, leaping over roots and patches of undergrowth, dodging around trees at a wild zigzag. There was already a stitch at her side, threatening to become a full-on cramp, her pulse throbbing like a dying thing in her throat, but she pushed through it, clutching the wad of chain tight to her side as she darted through a patch of low bushes.

Something snagged her shirt, tearing, and she felt a prickle of pain across the flesh of her arm. Thorns of some kind. She ignored it, veering sharply to the left. She was fairly sure she had recognized one of the giant old elm trees a she’d just raced past, and if she had she was going the right direction toward trail they had hiked in on. The trail that had taken the better part of a day to traverse…

The faint spark of hope began to waver, already dangerously close to snuffing out even before she caught the flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye.

To look at him, one might think this giant had neither the grace nor the capacity for quick movement, and one would have been wrong. She had known that: had seen the proof of it when he'd turned on her that horrible night, illuminated by flame. She should have harbored no illusions, even for a second, that she could have outrun him. She could not have. Not at a dead sprint across a straight line on even terrain in perfect health. So when she saw him emerge from the trees, surging straight for her fast as some gigantic cat, she felt the defeat crash into her the instant before he did.

He seized her around the middle, arms curving beneath her breasts and about her hips to lift her straight off her feet; effectively - and literally - stopping her dead in her tracks.

She threw her head back and screamed, as much for her fury and her frustration as the fear kicking high in the back of her throat. It was a wrenching, wailing riot of sound that raked at her vocal chords, but she didn't care. What did it matter if she screamed herself mute when she might be dead tomorrow?

"Let go!"

She drove her elbow viciously back into his ribs as he folded her against his chest. He didn't react, so she kicked him, slamming her foot against his leg so hard that she felt the impact burn all the way up to her knee.

" _Let go_ of me, you--"

A hand as wide as her face closed over her mouth, forcing her to swallow down the scathing insult ready on her tongue. She very seriously considered biting down, but thought better of it when his grip firmed to press her head back against his shoulder. He was far stronger than she, and making sure she knew it. In this position he could snap her in half like a candy cane with little effort, and while she didn't think he would...she really couldn't be sure, could she? What if she'd been lulled into some semblance of safety, assuming he wouldn't simply decide she was more trouble than she was worth and kill her as he'd initially planned?

The exhausted, half-feverish part of her brain considered whether that was such a bad thing. At least if she was dead it would be over – no more doubt, no more fear, no more waiting for something even more terrible to happen. But she quashed the thought as soon as it bloomed.

She didn't want to die. And if she was going to die, it would not be like this.

Whitney went limp, letting the tension ease from her limbs as much as she feasibly could when dangling several feet above the ground. She dragged in a steadying breath, her lungs filling beneath the steady grip of his arm and bringing with it the scents of earth, pine, and leather. Strange. She would have expected him to reek of death, blood and stale sweat and metal, but that wasn’t the case at all. Oddly enough, it wasn't altogether unpleasant.

His hand tightened ever so slightly upon her mouth, and for whatever reason that was when it clicked. The gesture was not a threat. He wasn't telling her that if she screamed he would wring her neck. It said, very simply: _please, don't._

In retrospect, she supposed it very much could have been a threat and she was simply reading meaning into it that hadn't been there. Yet, somehow even when the thought occurred to her later she had trouble believing it, in part for the distinct impression she got of patient tolerance – that of someone dealing with a particularly stubborn and bratty child. And in part because when her mouth snapped shut, he immediately removed the hand.

Reaching down to seize the chain trailing down to skim the dirt, he wrapped it twice securely around his palm before lowering her back to the ground. He did not release her right away, holding her there for a moment as she regained her footing, and very slowly retracting his arm from around her waist. Fingertips brushed her ribs, and it took everything she had not to wrench away.

He straightened, and he didn't simply stand – he _loomed_ over her, great beast that he was. It was the first time she had found herself standing toe to toe with him, and while she was taller than average with thanks to her great-grandmother’s supposed Amazonian blood, the crown of her head reached no higher than the middle of his chest. Intimidated in spite of herself, she shrank back.

His hand shot out, grasping her roughly above the elbow and stopping her short. She squeaked, and bit deep into her cheek to keep the sound from becoming something greater, the coppery tang of blood filling her mouth. His gaze was focused down, at a spot on the ground behind her. Puzzled, she twisted to look, and caught the glint of metal winking out from beneath the dirt and scattered leaves not inches from the back of her heel. Sharp metal teeth. Her heart stuttered in her chest.

She had almost walked right into another bear trap.

When she looked up again it was to find him looking at her, single visible eye trained sharply on her face. With a start, she realized that the eye she had only ever seen at night or in shadow was not dark at all. It was steely blue, almost gray. He studied her in his ever constant silence, and she found herself thinking that his gaze didn't seem like the gaze of a mindless killer, or the sick, twisted bastard she had nearly called him. But he _was._ She had seen Amanda strung up from a tree like live bait and left to burn, seen the skin and muscle shredded beneath the teeth of a trap identical to the one he had just kept her from stepping into. It had been the work of a hunter, an exterminator: cold, calculated. Uncaring.

Something twisted, her stomach rebelling as if it meant to reject the cold ravioli she had managed to choke down. Whether it was the remembered smell of charred hair and fat or the sight of Richie's head sliced apart like a melon, the feel of blood and torn skin slick between her fingers, or if it was simply that she was tired and scared and her body couldn't take any more without a release. Her insides shuddered, her eyes stinging as the tears gathered.

 _Why._ Why keep her and not the others? Why feed her, why not let her rot in her own waste? Why stop her from walking into the trap? Why do any of this? If he meant to torture her, why wait? If he wanted her for the use of her body, then why not simply pin her down and do it? It wasn't as if she was capable of fending him off: he'd proven that impossible several times over. What else could there possibly be?

He bent, one arm looping just under her backside, rose to sling her over a shoulder as he had before to carry her resolutely back to her prison.

When he finally put her down again it was to deposit her on her little bed in the corner. Her body sagged into the soft surface, and she decided as he looped the chain back through the metal ring and snapped the padlock closed that she would let herself sleep. It was going to happen at some point, the body could only stay awake for so long. And if he decided while she slept to come down and cut her throat then so much the better. At least she’d be oblivious.

Long, broad fingers closed around her free wrist, clearly intending to shackle her anew. Yet he paused in the midst of securing the cuff in place, turning her arm in his grasp. She saw his eye narrow, creasing as if with a frown, and glanced down. The skin of her wrist was an angry red, chafed raw where the metal had rubbed and scraped, only some of which had been due to having used the cuff to mark the wall. His thumb traced the edge of what had become a sickly yellowing bruise and it was such a strange thing to do, almost tender, and she hated him for it.

Balling her hand into a fist she snatched it from his grasp.

“Stop it,” she snapped, and there was hardly any anger left to put spark in her words. There was little room for anything but weary defeat. “Don’t pretend you give a damn about me. Just do what you’re going to do and get it over with or get the hell away from me.”

For a long moment he was motionless, and she imagined she saw confusion in the subtle sideways tilt of his head. He reached again for her wrist, the movement slow and almost cautious, but she didn’t fight him. There was an obvious care when he closed the manacle about her, but she was far beyond caring. As soon as he rose, she was curling up on her meager bed and closing her eyes.

It was not the most comfortable place she had ever attempted to sleep. Still, the bedding was clean, smelling faintly of detergent, and she wasn’t cold. By the time he made it to the steps she was already slipping into a haze.

It occurred to her only when she awoke that he could have stopped her escape attempt from the very beginning. All he’d had to do was hold on to the chain and let her tear her own arms from their sockets.

Instead, he had chosen to let her run.

~*~


	3. Rocks and Water

 

****

* * *

 

It was dark when she woke, marking the fourth night she had spent down here in the ground.

Whitney rubbed her eyes, squinting as she sat up, not having expected the warm yellow light that filled the earthen room. Lights had been strung throughout the tunnels, still somehow wired to electricity, but it still grew intensely dark when the sun went down. Nighttime made the space seem smaller, tighter, oppressive and dank like the cave it truly was when there was no sunlight to spill down from the cracks above her and remind her there was still a world outside her prison.

The previous nights she had spent in darkness, but when she turned her head now it was to find a little battery operated camping lantern had been left atop her crate alongside a new can of mixed vegetables that had been opened, covered with a plate, and topped with a clean spoon. There was fresh water, too, and – as she saw as she glanced down – a pair of blankets that had been left folded neatly by her feet as she slept.

She was a little chilly, she noted, and her head and wrists both ached something fierce. The sleep had helped, but not by a lot. There was plenty else to make up the difference. Dehydration. Chafing. Her body was sore, the muscles in her legs and lower back tight and strained from her panicked dash through the woods. Panicked and pointless. It had been stupid to run, not the least while he had been right there to see her do it. Oh well.

Reaching for the water, she drank in measured swallows until she got half the jug down. She lifted the plate and poked at the contents of the can, and while her belly squeezed and groaned longingly at the prospect of food, she could only stomach a mouthful of cold, slimy carrots before giving up and recovering it with a shudder.

A rustling noise caught her ear, a light scratching. A muted squeak. Rats.

She sat up a little straighter, peering around what floor she could see from her vantage point to try and spot them. Rats didn’t bother her. Her mother had been a teacher for almost twenty years before the cancer and had kept rats as classroom pets for at least half of that time. During the summers she’d bring them home for Whitney to take care of, though her older brother Clay had kept a wide berth. Clay hated rodents of all kinds – something Whitney had teased him about endlessly when they were little. Still, there was a very real difference between pets and wild animals, and she made a note to keep an eye out for them. She didn’t need to get bit on top of everything else.

The creak and thud of the trapdoor opening came a moment later, followed by steady, plodding steps. She wasn’t sure why he made so much noise down here when she knew he could move in complete silence. The only thing she could think of was that it either took effort to maintain the stealthy quiet, or he was making a conscious effort on her behalf. The latter seemed far-fetched to the degree of being ridiculous. Still, a part of her wondered. He didn’t like it when she screamed, which she was wont to do if spooked. Maybe it wasn’t so ridiculous after all, then, that he might take pains to keep from startling her.

The light preceded him, spilling from a second lantern hanging from one big hand as he rounded the corner. Several tiny furry bodies scurried about his feet as he descended the steps, and she noticed he took special care to avoid stepping on them. She watched this with bemused curiosity, for the maneuvering seemed more a result of worry than distaste, as though he were concerned he might hurt the creatures rather than that he might end up with smushed rat innards on the sole of his boot.

_Huh._

She couldn’t have said why, but this careful consideration for animals so small and so often regarded as mere vermin gave her an odd sense of relief. Whatever else he might have been, stalker, murderer, if he didn’t hurt animals then he couldn’t be a complete psychopath. Not that that helped _her_. It still managed to alleviate some of the tension in her back and shoulders.

He approached, more quietly now that he’d seen she was awake and aware of him, lowering the second lantern to the crate and sinking into a crouch. He glanced at the food, tilting the plate to look inside the can and finding it still full. The faint frown line appeared at the inner corner of his eye.

Shifting that eye to her he tapped the surface of the plate, at once question and subtle chastisement.

“I know,” she hastened to say, “I’m sorry. It’s not that I don’t appreciate it, it’s just…” She struggled, trying to think of how to say it without coming across as ungrateful or bratty. One shoulder lifted in an uncomfortable little half-shrug. “Canned things aren’t usually meant to be eaten cold.”

The frown line remained, though she thought it might had become consideration rather than disapproval. Seeming to brush aside the matter of her eating habit – or lack thereof – he extracted something out of a pocket and set it on the crate. A flat plastic box, once white and liberally dented, marked with a red cross. A first aid kit?

She didn’t catch his reach for her wrists, but didn’t flinch when she felt him touch her. With a twist of the little key and a click of the lock the manacle fell from her left wrist, revealing a sore strip of skin. Popping open the lid of the kit, he extracted several packets of gauze, a roll of bandaging, cloth tape, and set to work.

There were many thing wrong with it. For one, she seriously doubted his hands had been anywhere close to sterile in years, and for another, there was no ointment in the kit. Still, the basics were there; he padded the sides of each hand below thumb and the outside of her palm, securing gauze somewhat clumsily with the tape before wrapping them in a generous length of the ace bandage. It would help keep the chafing to a minimum, stop the cold metal from further aggravating the already irritated skin, and prevent any open wounds from forming. Whatever his reasons for doing it, she was grateful.

Having secured her much more comfortably back in her cuffs he began tucking the rest of the tape and bandaging away. Feeling chilly, Whitney reached for one of the blankets, jumping when something slipped from the pocket of her jeans and fell to the dirt between them with a clatter.

The locket. She had forgotten all about it in the midst of everything, forgotten that she’d distractedly slipped it in her pocket when Mike had dragged her to look at something else in the creepy house. The clasp had come undone and the piece lay open, pictures turned down.

And he was staring down at it, great body gone still as stone.

After a tense breath he reached for it, cradling the pendant between thick fingers and turning it over to peer inside. There was a strange reverence to the way he held the necklace, as though it were solid gold and not cheap plated brass, handling it like a wounded bird, not a piece of jewelry on a dirty faded ribbon.

She experienced a moment of apprehension as he ran a fingertip across the image on the right side of the locket to brush away a bit of dirt – the overpowering sense that she should have left the thing where she’d found it. There were a number of things she _should have done_ , starting with refusing point blank to go on this farce of a camping trip. Still, she should have put it down, left it pointedly and respectfully in the mausoleum where they had found it. But she hadn't. She had taken it with her, tucked it somewhere safe and close because it had been a treasure and subconsciously she had tried to treat it as such.

His gaze lifted from the locket cupped in his palm, the blue starkly pronounced in the bright glow of artificial light. He regarded her closely, intently, as though if he looked hard enough he might be able to see past the exterior, past skin and bone and matter to the core of her. As though trying to figure something out. She understood the sentiment. She herself felt like she was staring at bits of a whole, and she couldn’t quite piece them together.

Pressing the locket closed, he held it there for a second, hesitating very slightly before he reached to slip the ribbon over her head so that the pendant rested against her chest. 

There was something she was missing here – something incredibly, vitally important. Something in the way he was looking at her, at the locket where it lay at her sternum.

What was it? 

She remembered the clasp had been undone before too, easily opened. She remembered examining the two pictures. Mike had said Whitney resembled the woman on the right, dark-haired and lovely in a fine, elfin kind of way. She had scoffed at him: half an automatic response to being referred to as pretty in any way, whether or not she believed herself to be, half due to the sheer discomfort she had felt being there in the house.

 _Why_ did that matter? Because it did; she felt it deep down where she held the absolute truths of who she was. But she couldn’t quite put it together, as if the illumination was a candle that hovered just out of her reach.

The old abandoned house. The child’s bedroom, at once untouched and clamoring with ghosts for each toy, each book, each piece of scattered clothing. The little bed. The bear atop the dust-choked pillow, obviously loved. The name carved into the headboard. The locket with its delicate brass windows framing two tiny pictures: one side clean and shining and cared for, the other scratched and dirty as if defaced by an angry hand.

_"It looks like you.”_

No. Surely not. 

His fingertips brushed the embossed surface. His nails were overlong, the ends jagged, clogged with dirt, the cuticles outlined with grime, but the touch was soft. She had thought him the copycat of a spooky bedtime story, an impostor, a sick psychopath with an affinity for playing games when in reality he had been something else entirely. 

The boy that had drowned but had not died. Orphaned, abandoned, traumatized.

The girl who was only alive because she resembled his dead mother.

Her lips parted, the name held burning at the tip of her tongue

“…Jason?”

His head snapped up, the muscles of his shoulders bunching beneath the layers of tattered clothing as he stared at her, and she knew she had guessed correctly.

The use of his name had snared his attention, that was for certain, but abruptly she wondered whether to do so had been wise. A sudden wildness had entered his lone visible eye, a convoluted tangle of emotions that were there and gone too rapidly to trace let alone define. His fingers curled, hand closing about the locket, and she wondered if he wasn’t about to rip it from around her neck regardless of the fact that he had put it there. 

Tension coiled, thick as smoke in the air between them. “It’s ok,” she said shakily, trying for a soothing cadence and failing utterly.

At her words he leapt into motion, dropping the locket and surging to his feet, retreating as though she had stabbed him. With a rustle of tattered cloth he was gone, a silent shadow vanishing into the corridor.

Shaken, Whitney let out the breath she had been holding in a trembling rush. 

It turned out Wade’s ghost stories hadn’t been simply stories. Jason Voorhees was very much alive, stalking the grounds of the place of his childhood torment and slaughtering all who dared enter. A phantom – a ghost in the trees, this land of blood and bones. And for one brief instant, as she had stared into that one bright blue eye, she hadn’t seen the monster that had abducted her, restrained her. He hadn’t looked like the vicious beast that had murdered people in front of her.  

He had looked lost, afraid…a little boy trapped in the dark.

Wait. What? 

No, no, no.  _No._

Nothing had changed. Everyone else was dead: Mike, gone, Amanda burned alive, Richie’s skull cleaved open, and she had no idea what horrible end had befallen Wade. They hadn't even been her friends. They had been Mike's friends. She hadn't even really liked them and yet to see them dead, to see them  _die…_  

She could not forget that. He was not a lost puppy, not a scared child. He was a murderer – a monster. He had killed her boyfriend in front of her. He had kept his mother’s _head_  in a  _hole_  in the  _bathroom wall_.

A shudder coursed its way down her back, and she reached anew for a blanket, wrapping it around her shoulders and huddling in her corner. The locket bumped gently against her breastbone, an oddly heavy weight for such a light piece. She lifted it away with both hands, running the pad of her thumb across the faded floral pattern on its worn surface before sliding a nail between the catch and clicking it open to revel the two photographs inside. She could see some of the resemblance in the woman now: in the face structure, the long darker hair. Nevertheless, it didn't seem enough to warrant Jason confusing her for his mother. She could only assume that’s what had happened, why he had ceased his effort to kill her precisely when he had seen her face, why he was caring for her so diligently – if misguidedly.  Her gaze shifted automatically to the other picture. The image of the boy depicted there was so distorted and scratched that she could hardly make out his face, only a vague outline of a head, overlarge in proportion to the pair of skinny shoulders below it and somewhat misshapen, though not as much as she had expected from the stories. Hydrocephalus maybe; or something else with a similar effect on cranial shape.    

Why had he given the locket back to her? Clearly it meant a great deal to him – something which made rather more sense now that she knew him for who he was. So why drape it around her neck like a talisman and not put it back in the jewelry box where Mike had found it? Did he still think her some reincarnation of the woman who had raised him, or had she ruined that illusion? Perhaps this very second he was mustering the willpower to come back down and rip her head off for the imposter that she was.

Well…it wasn’t anything she hadn’t already expected. 

Another muted rustle sounded from the other side of her crate. Reaching into the can, Whitney scooped out a couple mushy peas and carrots and tossed them to the other side of the room in the hopes of tempting them to scurry elsewhere.

* 

There was relief in the open – in the spaces between the trees – and Jason relished it as he cut a path through the undergrowth. 

 _“…Jason?”_ It had been half a question on her tongue: her lips curving cautiously around the syllables that formed his name as though she feared they might have the power to end her. His name on her voice, soft and hesitant. She might as well have kicked him right in the throat.

He had stared at her: at the girl who peered up at him from that face that called up faint childhood memories, hazy, but warm and comfortable. Someone who had once cared for him –  _loved_  him. Yearning had risen up like a tide inside him, choking him,  _drowning_  him. Until she had looked at him that way, awe flexing and tangling around the thread of fear in her eyes and he had known without a shred of doubt that she was not his mother. Empty sorrow pulled at the gaping place inside him that was all wistful longing and loneliness and the utter, unending futility of it all.  

He had fled.

...and he had no idea what to do now. He was overwhelmed, rattled and out of control and he didn’t like one bit. His strides slowed until they gradually ceased, and he was left standing in the middle of a glade, hands at his sides. It was early morning now, the sun just about to broach the horizon. There was already a pale yellow hue to the sky to the east, faint and almost buttery, turning the tops of the evergreens a rich sage. Even this simple, everyday occurrence of color and light had his mind arrowing back to the little corner in the tunnels where he had chained a girl who was no what he had thought she was. A girl who had trespassed, whose every breath was in violation of the oath he had made.

The sole reason he had left her living, kept her, cared for her, had been directly tied to that faint shining hope that in hindsight seemed foolish to an extreme. Surely that meant he must kill her now, return her to her friends in the earth as tithe for her trespass...after he had fed her. Tended her wounds. 

He recalled the look on her face the day before, when he had brought her back: the hopeless, empty marriage of rage and despair. No one had ever looked at him that way before. Not one of the faceless thousands he had dispatched, not his mother at her most angry or disappointed. He had not thought he could still feel something like guilt, yet he had felt it all the same.

But he could not lay blame on her for the choices he had made. He had seen something of his mother in her, and he had chosen his actions in response. She had trespassed, yes, and he could not rightly say that he had not punished her. He punished her still by refusing her the freedom she so clearly wanted. Was that payment enough?

He didn’t like to be the cause of suffering if he could help it. His task was a simple one to be gotten over and done with as quickly and cleanly as possible. And here he was, causing her to suffer. The solution was simple, yet the idea of killing her – of slitting her throat, of severing spine or crushing skull – did not sit well. He didn’t know why, or at what point it had become so, but for some reason he could not abide the thought of killing her. Which was…disorienting.

He felt it before he heard it: the chaotic flurry and rustle of movement. The steps. The bloodbeat. He felt it half an instant before the rage flooded in. It always began as anger. Every time he felt the reverberation of a step, a heartbeat, heard the noise of breath or tool, the response was always the same sharp slice of fury. The rage had long since shed the form of an emotion. It never abated; as ever present as if it had set itself into his bones like a fever that no amount of purging could burn off. It didn't seem to matter how many people he killed and buried. They never stopped coming and his anger never left him. Yet at the end of every season, as winter drove off even the most hardened of potential hunters, he found himself dragging in answer of every footstep, every triggered tripwire, every trap. The weariness was as constant as the anger, and just as inevitable. He found himself trudging through the snow wondering why he was still alive when he had no real need for food, no real need for sleep. When all he seemed to do was exist until the next trespasser crossed his land.

The anger flowed more easily than usual, catching like a spark to kerosene in his veins, his skin, his lungs. His body turned before he had even consciously willed it, angling toward the source of the sounds, eager for something to focus on aside from his overwhelming confusion. Something that made sense. 

He tracked the source of the sound to the stream that ran through the eastern end of his territory. A lone man walking along the water, pack slung across his back and a dog at his heels, tail wagging contentedly as the man whistled an off-key tune. Jason kept his distance at first, trailing their steps in silence until they reached thicker ground cover. They were close to the border here, and Jason preferred to make his kills where disposal of the bodies left behind could be done more efficiently to minimize discovery.

The dog noticed him first – aware as all animals were to a far more adept degree than humans – several times straying from its human to sniff warily at the tree-line, once going so far as to growl softly, concerned.

“Bonnie, shush!”

The hiker whistled, bidding the dog to come. She didn’t, having planted herself directly in front of the trees behind which Jason stood, regarding him as he regarded her.

As a rule, Jason did not harm animals without a reason – not unless they attempted him harm or were to be food – and he was hoping he wasn’t going to have to do so now.

The dog was of medium size, with a short golden coat and flopping triangular ears. He remembered one of the camp counselors had had a dog like this when he was young. While the counselor herself hadn’t been the nicest of people – she certainly hadn’t been the meanest, either – she had let him play with her dog for as long as he’d wanted. He remembered running his hands over the soft black fur of the dog’s back and belly, remembered laughing at the swipe of a lolling tongue across his face, for the dog hadn’t cared that he was deformed. The dog hadn’t thought him a freak. The dog had loved him purely because he’d shown it love in return.

He wondered what had happened to that dog, whether the girl had been one of the people his mother had killed.

“What’s the matter, girl?”

The golden dog whined, head drooping slightly as her dark eyes glanced toward her master before darting back to Jason. No, he wouldn’t have to hurt this animal. He sighed, grateful, and stepped out from the cover of trees.

He used the hunting knife rather than the machete, needing somehow to feel the life beneath his hands as he bled it into the earth. There was a bit of a chase at first, as the hiker staggered across the stream, hurling course language at him – language that would have earned Jason a sound smack under the chin had he possessed the voice to use it. The man went as far as to shed his pack and hurl it, thinking it would somehow stall Jason long enough to make a difference.

It did not.

In the end he drove the knife up through the soft space between jaw and throat, slicing through windpipe and spinal cord with a single clean thrust. Blood spilled down over the back of his hand, washing his sleeve, a baptism of life and death and payment made. By the time he let the body fall, the scale had been balanced, and the dog had fled.

Jason was sorry for that. He might have liked to take her home.

Did the girl like dogs, he wondered? And immediately frowned at the unwanted intrusion upon his thoughts.

Crouching, he opened the hiker’s discarded pack, rifling through the contents for anything of potential use. Most of it was useless; bits of paper and plastic, a small metallic contraption that somewhat resembled a two-way radio, clothing much too small for him. There was a packet of crackers and several bags of nuts and dried fruit that he stowed away in a pocket. There was also, to his surprise, a worn little paperback book, the covers dog-eared, pages yellowed with age and love.

He turned it over in his hands, running his fingertips over the white creases. He could read, some. He’d had to. While he had never been competent in the way of book-learning as a child he had managed to grasp and retain what it took to stay alive. He could decipher simple words enough to grasp when something was marked _DANGER_ , or whether something was either toxic or edible.

Other people read for pleasure. He knew this. His mother had read to him from big books full of pictures when he’d been little, some of which were still tucked away on a shelf in his bedroom, gathering dust, unopened for more years than he had bothered to keep track of. Did she like to read? If he brought her a book – something to look at, something to do – if he made her space more like a home and less like a prison, would she be happy?

Happy…

He huffed quietly, a soft exhale of amusement and irritation. Clearly at some point he had determined that he would not be killing her, if he was now prioritizing contentment alongside health and general wellness. He had never been so fickle before, and he wasn’t sure he liked it. Nevertheless, he tucked the little book into his pocket alongside the food, and buried the pack and the rest of its contents under a patch of ferns.

He needed to get back. She hadn’t eaten the food he’d brought, yet again, and he was starting to worry she was going to get sick.

Jason ate when he was hungry, but such times had become fewer and fewer as time passed, and between what the woods could provide and what he scavenged from the odd trespasser had been more than enough with plenty left over to keep in generous reserve. He hadn’t been concerned about keeping her fed until now.

Clearly the canned provisions simply weren’t sufficient. The next time he went on a perimeter sweep he would steal a few things from the farm adjacent to the southern border, vegetables and the like. It was summer, there was sure to be something fresh that might tempt her to eat.

Jason tended not to leave his land. If a wayward stranger set foot within his grounds they were dealt with, but mostly these were travelers, hikers, campers, passersby. The locals kept a wide berth. They knew better than to cross the borders. It was a truce of sorts, if an uneasy one. They steered well clear of his land – he did not kill them. Still, every once in a while they mistook themselves and he deemed it fair that if they entered his land he, in turn, could enter theirs. He knew for a fact that the workers who manned Garrick’s land tended to treat the territory line a little more loosely than any of the other locals, so he did not feel it out of bounds to extract payment in the form of food if it meant he could feed the girl. 

It occurred to Jason that if he was keeping her – as he appeared to be – he should probably refer to her as something other than just  _girl_ , even if only in his own mind. What had her name been? 

The boy she'd been walking with – the one he had torn apart from the sheer rage at finding them in his mother’s house – the boy that had told her to run. He had called her Whitney. As had the other one, as he’d pleaded with her to help him seconds before Jason had buried a blade deep in his skull. 

 _Whitney._  

Her name was Whitney.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First, thank you to everyone for reading, for the kudos and the comments! 
> 
> I wanted to make a quick note that I will be playing around with the timeline as it is in the film. I say this now because I referenced a specific moment where, you know, we're actually supposed to believe she wouldn't have figured out who he was until six weeks after being kidnapped. Right.
> 
> Until next time - take care!


	4. Fighter

****

* * *

 

**Day 4**

The day passed in an agony. Hours bypassed hours, traceable solely by the steady change of the sunlight filtering in from above, and as they did Whitney's worry increased.  

Clearly using Jason's name had spooked him. She had seen the startled shock in his visible eye, rendering the pupil wide and dark. It hadn’t been fear, exactly, but she wasn’t sure what else to call it. When had he last heard it spoken aloud, she wondered. Years? Could it have been decades? 

If the stories were true - and she was inclined to believe there was at least a kernel of truth to them - then Jason had drowned at the age of eleven or twelve. Or, rather, had been believed to have drowned. The disappearance had been so believable that his mother had lost her mind, murdered a number of camp counselors and done all she could to sabotage the camp itself so that such a thing would never again happen to anyone else's child. But if that was true and he had been there long enough to see her die, had she been so maddened by her grief that she had not seen her own son alive and whole right there in front of her? Whitney supposed it was possible. Stranger things had certainly happened. Or...

Or perhaps the other stories were the true ones. The ones that claimed the little boy had indeed drowned that day and, upon the death of his mother, had been resurrected. Reborn amidst some sacrifice of blood and death to rise anew, a creature of pure rage fated to feed from vengeance. 

Honestly, right there in that moment, Whitney would have believed either. But it didn't matter what she believed. Of two things she was absolutely sure. First: regardless of whether he had died or not, he was a living man now. He was not a ghost but a corporeal, sentient being that breathed, thought, and…did not speak. Perhaps  _could_  not. Second: since his mother’s death, he had been out here alone. 

There was an incredible sadness in that, but Whitney didn't allow herself to pursue it. Sad story or no, he was still a sick bastard who got off on killing, and there was no amount of tragedy sufficient to excuse that. 

Her stomach gave a wrenching growl and she pressed her hands against her belly, willing it to pass. It had been gnawing angrily at itself since the sun had been pale and watery. Had it been just the hunger, she might have been all right, but her bladder was full past the point of comfort and her wrist was sore from scratching another tally into the wall. Her joints ached from lack of use, and her back muscles were angry with her for spending so much time in a bed not her own. It was hot today: hotter than it had been all summer, and while the space sheltered beneath the earth remained much cooler than it would be outside her clothes had begun to stick uncomfortably to her skin as sweat gathered. She had napped some, knowing she was exhausted and could likely use the sleep, but her dreams had been strange and frightening, and she had stopped trying after a while. 

She leaned forward to peer through the grating next to her, at the light spilling in through the patchy floor above, warm and richly golden with that luster of heat that had been absorbing into surfaces all day. It was well into evening now and she had neither seen nor heard any sign of him. Usually by now he had come down at least once - to check her water if nothing else - but he had not, and she was starting to wonder if he would come back at all. She could resign herself to a quick death, to beheading or strangulation, bleeding out. But the idea of slowly starving in a puddle of her own urine had the power to incite a bit of panic. 

A raucous clamor of noise shattered the quiet, and Whitney jumped with a squeak, eyes darting around to pinpoint the source. There was no movement anywhere in the tunnel, and hadn't been for hours. Even the rats had meandered off to places beyond her line of sight to wait out the hotter part of the day. It was only by chance that she glanced up and saw the bells. A string of them, lined up along a support beam and tied to a cord that trailed along the tunnel ceiling and disappeared. 

_What on earth...?_

She frowned, sitting up on her knees in an attempt to get a closer look. Upon doing so she discovered that there were more; several other strings of bells and bits of metal clearly rigged to create noise if disturbed lining the beams above her head. What were they, alarms of some kind? Would they go off if she tried to leave? But she wasn't hooked to anything that she could see, and nothing had ever gone off before...unless they weren't for her. He hadn't planned to kidnap her after all, so why - and when - would he have rigged a system to keep her inside?

Wary unease prickled down her spine, the fine hairs at the nape of her neck standing on end. Something about this, and she couldn't have said what, reminded her of the traps, the methodical hunter who planned and schemed and prepared for his kills not only in practical (or paranoid) anticipation of them, but who reveled in them.

The ceiling above her creaked loudly and for the second time she jumped half out of her skin. The trapdoor opened with its usual whine followed by the impact of descent, and Whitney felt her heart leap into her throat. 

Her hands were shaking, she realized, clenched into fists and wedged between her knees as if to sink the tremors into the ground. She hadn't been this anxious yesterday. But then she hadn't potentially triggered an emotional reaction and therefore potentially courted her own death quite to the same extent yesterday. The anxiety spiked when she heard the heavy footsteps draw close and Jason's frame came into view, only to ease so quickly it nearly made her dizzy when she saw the bowl cupped in one large hand. Relief spilled in to replace the fear. She had not made a horrible miscalculation, nor had she been abandoned to a horrible death. 

There was steam coming from the bowl: fine, thin, wispy tendrils of it that became visible as he drew near on silent feet. She almost thought she was hallucinating until he set it down in front of her and she felt the heat of it on her face, and the relief bloomed to an almost hysterical height. 

It was soup...and it was  _hot._

How exactly he had heated it Whitney had not a clue, and nor, frankly, did she much care. It was chicken noodle, the thick, hearty kind full of heavy egg noodles and actual chunks of meat and carrot rather than a weak both with two or three pieces of noodle and a few shreds of chicken floating around. He’d brought a sleeve of crackers with it, which were whole grain and full of seeds and a little bit stale but again, she hadn’t cared. The soup was hot and unreasonably delicious, and she could have cried had she not been far too busy stuffing her face.

He watched her eat, which might have been unnerving except she was about a thousand percent sure he did so just to ensure that she ate. Which she did. Heartily and at record speed. In fact, she ate so fast it was a wonder her stomach didn't cramp, wolfing down the entire can of soup and two thirds of the crackers before slowing.

She wrapped the crackers back up, twisting the plastic closed and considering that she might regret having eaten so many later. It had just been so good to eat without every bite feeling like a herculean challenge, and it felt so good to feel  _full_ for the first time in days. Even a little too full. 

"I—"

But he was already reaching for the padlock to release the chain, so she shut her mouth and waited before following him up and out. 

It wasn't until he was undoing one of her cuffs outside the bathroom that she noticed the blood. 

At first she couldn't tell what she was looking at. The coat itself was dark, an indeterminate color somewhere between gray and brown, but the end of his sleeve had been stiff where it had brushed her wrist as he unlocked the cuff and when she looked down, she saw the color there was off. Darker than before, and rusty brown, as though something had soaked into it and dried there. She had looked resolutely away before she could think too hard about what it meant until she was free to scramble into the first stall.

She sat there for a moment after relieving the pain in her bladder, face cupped in her hands and trying to swallow down whatever was bubbling up inside her. She couldn't tell if it was panic or sorrow or anger. Couldn't tell if she wanted to cry or to scream, or kick the stall door until it dented, or all of it at once. She didn't want to think about the person he must have killed. But it was too late for that.

After spending so much time in the clinic, she knew what blood looked like in almost every form and consistency. It shouldn’t have bothered her. It  _shouldn’t_  have, but it did. Because she knew how that blood must have gotten there, and for all that his hand had been clean, it did not erase the pain that self-same hand must have caused. She couldn’t stop herself from wondering whether that person she would never know had died quickly, or if they had suffered…as Mike had suffered.  Once summoned the thought would not be banished. Just like that her head was full of Mike's screams, the popping snap of vertebrae. All she could see was the splintered floorboards, enormous hands closing around his leg, fisting in his shirt, dragging him down. The blood bursting from between his lips as he screamed for her to run, the pain in his face eclipsed solely by the utter, primal terror of a prey animal being devoured. Which was precisely what he had been. Prey, vermin. A pest to exterminate. Yet it wasn't purely the same, because neither of those things adequately described the rage with which he had been eliminated.

With Amanda it had been purpose and Richie, practicality. But Mike…with Mike it had been  _rage:_ the vengeful fury of a doomed ghost, the need to punish. It had been brutal in the extreme, and Whitney knew she would see and hear the echoes of it in her nightmares for as long as she lived.

Whitney squeezed her eyes shut, clasping her hands tight over her ears as if she could block the images out, as if just maybe she could force herself to wake from the nightmare she was in now, this minute. But when she opened her eyes she was still in the crappy little bathroom stall in a log-cabin style building from the ‘70s out in the woods, in the middle of nowhere. There was still a chain dangling from her wrist, attached to the hand of a killer. There was no waking up from reality, no matter how awful. God, she missed Mike. Persistently cheerful Mike with his brain – and sometimes mouth – that wouldn’t shut up. Mike would have come up with some idea of what to do. But…it might not have been the best one. It had been _his_ idea to stroll through the creepy campground and creepier house, after all, and she who had sensed the wrongness of it. While it felt awful in the extreme to think it, _she_ was the one still standing. Somehow. Maybe she would have been no better off with him. Although she wouldn’t have been so alone. Her lungs expanded as she forced the breath in, and then out. Hiding in here bought her nothing. It changed nothing.

Standing, she pulled her pants back on and trudging out to the sinks to wash up. The mirror was dirty and scratched, and the face she saw reflected in it fit there. She was pale and dirty; there were shadows under her eyes, her hair stringy and hanging lank about her neck. But there was food in her belly and she was, for the most part, unhurt. And she had her mind.

She wasn’t beaten yet. She was her mother’s daughter – and if Ellen Miller could be going on her fourth year enduring the cancer that was supposed to have killed her off after two, then Whitney could find a way to free herself.

There was a way out…there had to be. The water from the tap was cold. Frankly she was still rather surprised there was still running water in the camp’s vicinity. She'd heard the grieving mother had done her damnedest to make the camp and the surrounding area as uninhabitable as possible: setting fires, vandalizing the wells, among other things. Evidently it hadn’t been enough to shut the place down, or they had reconstructed the plumbing. Either way, she was grateful for the clean water and grateful for the chill as she splashed her face and neck, half to calm and half to cool down.

The chain rattled at her wrist, and she blinked. How long had she been in here? Quite a while, she’d guess, yet he hadn’t come in after her. Any of the other men she knew - Clay probably most of all - would have at least yanked on the chain a couple times for her to hurry the hell up.

When she went outside, she found him waiting where she had left him, standing with his back to the dividing wall, the utter picture of patience. But then hunters were nothing if not patient, and that was exactly what he was. Precise and deadly, and far more intelligent than local legends would have had her believe. She felt the shudder ripple down her spine.

He turned to her as she exited the bathroom, a glint of light playing off the machete holstered at his side. She tensed automatically, though he had made no reach for it, the recollections of death and blood still fresh at the forefront of her mind – and she would have sworn he saw it. He’d caught the flinch, certainly, but something in the way he reached for her hand to secure the manacle once again was more cautious than usual. Did he think she meant to run again? That she might try to loop the chain around his neck and pull? An interesting idea, but one she dismissed the instant it came to her. Even if she somehow managed to accomplish getting anything around his neck when it was so far away from her, she was nowhere near strong enough to accomplish anything beyond that much. She eyed the thick muscle that she could see below the edge of the sackcloth and wouldn’t have been shocked to learn he could tear through the metal links with neck strength alone.

Mike had been strong, in the way the average twenty-five-year-old guy who enjoyed the odd jog and trip to the gym was strong.  _This_  man could in no way be described as average. He was built like a draft horse, heavy of shoulders and thick-waisted, bulky, but in the way of purpose rather than excess. His body was powerful because he used it; his life had shaped him upon a foundation of nature and necessity, genetics and demand. She had never before seen anyone so physically intimidating. It was as if the force of his anger had bolstered his development to forge a weapon perfectly crafted for murder. Because it had not only made him strong, but made him quick and quiet - a combination as unsettling as it was efficiently deadly.   

She felt the chain pull slightly at her wrists. He had begun the trek back to the trapdoor as she stared, but upon feeling the tension in her tether he had stopped immediately. The chain slackened and he looked back at her over one shoulder, a faint question in the subtle tilt of his shrouded head. She stayed where she was, testing the waters, very aware that doing so might result in something she didn't like - and was met with nothing but still more patient waiting. He wasn't going to drag her, wasn't going to risk the injury it might do her. He didn't need to say it, didn't need to speak. She just...knew. If anything, that only confused her more. 

Why should he care if he dragged her all the way across the campground and through the woods? Why should he care if her wrists were bloody and scraped down to the tendons? She didn't understand this. If he didn't want to kill her, and he didn't want anything from her - as he appeared not to - then why was he keeping her alive? Why house a prisoner for no reason? Why waste the resources, the time, the energy? Just... _why?_

Whitney stepped down off the shallow platform onto which the cinder-block building had been constructed, dry dirt and gravel scuffing under the soles of her shoes. He took half a step in response, as if in question, in the direction of the house - which she answered by following. Better to behave and not rouse suspicion. Better to make him think her resigned to her fate in captivity. She did take her time on the walk back, however, relishing the evening air on her face, neck, and chest.

It wasn't exactly cool. Even out here in the woods with no pavement the earth still absorbed the heat from a day's worth of full sun and clung to it, but there was just enough of a breeze to lift the hair from the back of her neck and hit the patches of sweat soaked through her shirt, to give an imitation of something close to cool. The movement was even better. She thought it every time he brought her outside: that she had never given nearly enough appreciation to just taking a walk, that even this deceptively complex series of motions of joints and muscles and tendons that she so often took for granted could offer a feeling of such relief. It wasn't that she couldn't stand in the tunnel - she could, if she chose - but her leash was kept quite short down there, which made even pacing laps around her little corner impossible. Out here she could stretch her back and legs, work out some of the tension and kinks that accumulated when a body was stuck in a single position for too long. 

She considered asking for more time - just to stay out here for a little longer. He could tether her to a tree, for all she cared. She would walk around and around it a hundred times and be quite cheerful about it. But she didn't ask, for fear that any variation to the pattern might draw attention she didn't want. 

As always, he lowered her down first: broad hands circling her waist and lifting her straight off the ground like she might have a housecat. He never let her go until he was sure she'd got her footing, either, which was...oddly considerate, in a strange sort of way. Rather like the bathroom breaks, and the hot food. Whitney considered that as he dropped down beside her. He had to stoop slightly to enter completely, before the ground sank in a gradual decline down to the main chamber in which she currently resided. Nothing had forced him to do any of those things. He hadn't had to feed her, hadn't had to do anything in response to her complaint, let alone the rest of it. Even if he'd decided she wasn't who he thought she was yet still couldn't bring himself to kill her directly, he could simply have let her starve. Surely that meant he still wanted something from her...right? Was she obsessing about that? Probably, but honestly, what else was she supposed to do aside from find some clever way of escaping.

He didn't linger after securing her chain and gathering her dishes in a way that was surreally domestic. He checked her water, and had she imagined the way his eye had flickered over her before he turned and left? It wouldn't have surprised her if she had. It was dark already down there, even though the sun had only just begun to set in earnest. Reaching for the battery lantern left within reach upon her crate she pressed the switch to turn it on, filling the corner with a warm yellow glow. The light made the tunnel appear darker than before, more pressing and sinister somehow, as though it was a reminder that nasty things lurked in dark places. 

Lifting the lantern, she rose up on her knees and examined the lock securing the chain to its metal ring. She tugged experimentally and both ring and chain held fast. No way she was going to be able to pull the thing out of the wall, or the lock open - not that she had really thought she could. Even if she had, it would have left her to attempt fleeing once again without the use of her hands and lugging the heavy chain. Not ideal. She set the lantern back down on the crate, holding her hands up to the light to study the manacles around her wrists. They were old, not quite what she might consider antique, but old enough to be well removed from what were used by the police or the security guards at the clinic. 

Draping the chain where it connected to the cuffs between her knees she held on and cautiously pulled, twisting her wrist one way and the other in the hopes that she might be able to wrestle her way free. The bandaging rumpled and bunched up, preventing this. But even if it hadn't Whitney wasn't confident it would have worked. Her captor was too smart to clap her in manacles she had any chance of slipping out of. 

She studied the locks on the cuffs, chewing anxiously at her lower lip. The metal was stained dark with age, but she could just make out the little crevices where the key would go. Maybe...could she pick them?

Casting about for something to use, something thin and long and preferably metal that might serve as a tool and nearly knocked the lantern over in her haste to check the other side of the crate. She caught it before it could fall and break. And then she stilled, gazing down at the device cupped between her bound hands. An idea had just lit in her mind - a match struck in a dark room - that might just work.

Setting the lantern carefully down on the edge of the crate, she settled in to wait.

*

Jason had made it almost a third of the way around the lake before he realized the book was still in his pocket.

There was always work to do: a perimeter to walk, traps and tripwires to check and reset, weapons to maintain. Simply the task of doing the rounds of the lake territory could take upwards of half a day, and he had been slower to accomplish most things lately due to the undeniable alteration to his daily pattern that was the girl. That was Whitney.

The feat of heating the soup had been a matter of hope, gritted teeth, and pure dumb luck. He’d spent hours rummaging through the cabins for something he could use to produce heat strong enough to cook with. There was no power to the house anymore; either, he assumed, because its electricity had come from a different source than that of the camp and the tunnel generators, or because his mother had cut it in her endeavors to make the place uninhabitable. Although, even if there had been, he would have had no idea how to use the stove.  _If_  the stove was electric. He had no idea. He could light a fire, he supposed, though he had spent enough time observing campers to know that fire was not always a reliable tool for such purposes and would take long enough to make it a last resort.

It was luck and luck alone that he had found the thing he thought might be called a hotplate, and more luck still that he had a vague memory of how it was used. The cabins were still connected to a power grid – a feature he found worked continuously in his favor – and he was able to plug the device into an outlet and subsequently present Whitney with hot food.

Of course, the time it had taken him to do this had been considerable, and had put him off his routine. Not that it much mattered. Jason was only set in his rhythm because it was natural to do so, and was accustomed enough to the odd interruption by way of someone walking where they shouldn’t to be unbothered. Besides, witnessing her reaction had been worth the effort and the delay.

He had never seen anyone eat so fast. She had taken one look at the coils of steam rising from the bowl and set upon it like a starving fox. Only, starving animals never really looked happy when they ate so much as satisfied. When  _he_  ate – on the increasingly rarer occasion that he did eat – he never really felt much of anything beyond the relief of meeting a need.  _She_  had been happy. He had seen it all over her face, in the way she cradled the bowl against her chest, close to her face and mouth, the way her eyes had brightened and her lips had curled in tiny half-smiles around the spoon. It had been a strange, and strangely fascinating, thing to observe.

Clearly she had been right, canned things were meant to be eaten hot. Interesting. Maybe he would try that the next time he felt hungry, just to see what it was like.

After he’d escorted her to the bathroom and back, he’d set off on his rounds like normal. He had been resetting a snare – tripped but empty, probably by some other variety of animal – reaching into a pocket for the twine he usually kept there when his fingers met the rectangular paper object.

He’d completely forgotten. Distracted, it seemed, by the food revelation, or perhaps after.

He couldn’t say why, after all she’d been perfectly compliant. But when he had begun the walk back from the bathroom, when the chain had pulled tight at her wrists and she had not moved – had simply stood perched on the edge of the step and regarded him – he’d had the creeping impression that she was about to run again.

She hadn’t, of course, though she had walked more slowly than usual, probably due to being cooped up so long in the tunnels. He needed to make sure to take her outside more often. Surely he could restructure his rounds to do so? And the distraction of the book…

The book that was still in his pocket.

Reaching past the paperback he grasped the twine and cut off a length to tie the snare loosely back into position, before rising and heading back for the house.

He could have waited, he supposed, until he had completely the trek, seen to everything else. It wasn’t as if there wasn’t time. Yet the odd, niggling sense of guilt had come back to bite him like an insect; small, inconsequential, but persistently distracting.  Jason had just stepped through the moldering threshold of what had once been the front door when he heard the crash.

It had sounded a bit like breaking glass, but not quite so sharp or with quite the clarity of glass. Whatever it was, it had most certainly come from below.

He started swiftly forward, not bothering to wait for any following noises before tossing back the trapdoor and descending. He could hear something else now, above the muted, conversational squeaking of the rats, amplified by the close space of the tunnels and the way they funneled sound. A thin metallic click and scrape, repeated at no apparent rhythm.

Rounding the corner, he found the lantern he’d left in a broken shambles, plastic shards spilling like ice crystals over the crate cracked open like a clam shell to reveal its insides. The light was gone, the battery pack burst and crumpled, the bulb cold. But there was enough streaming down from what was left of the sunset to make out the sliver of metal gripped between her fingers.

She was bent over her hands, intently focused on sticking the end of the wire into the lock on one of her cuffs and wiggling it around as if to imitate the motions of a key. He could tell it wouldn’t work simply by looking. The way the lock was constructed, it would likely have required at least two pieces like the one she had to do what he suspected she was attempting, and definitely two hands, neither of which she had. He could also tell, especially by the way the sliver slid against the metal cuff as it jerked accidentally free, that she was in danger of impaling herself with the thing. Not likely something which would result in serious injury, but any injury was something he would prefer to avoid.

He didn’t think to make noise upon his approach, yet something – if only the indescribable animal sense of danger – alerted her. Her head snapped up, pupils blown wide in the dark. They found him just as he reached her, one hand closing around hers. So much smaller, so incredibly delicate.

The instant he laid a hand on her she began to thrash, yanking her arms back and closing her fingers tight around the little piece of wire as though it had the power to save her – which evidently she had hoped it might.

Her spine arced, her head rearing back like that of an angry weasel threatening to bite. Most animals would bare their teeth as a sign of aggression, whether to express dominance or a threat: a reminder that said teeth could – and would – clamp down and tear flesh, shatter bone, open throats. More often than not such a gesture was born out of fear, as this one unquestionably was.

He almost admired the planning. She must have been holding onto the idea for a while. But she had played the part of having given up, had waited nearly two hours so that he would be well out of earshot, so she would be long gone by the time he came back and realized she wasn’t where he’d left her. She might have made it had it not been due to the little misfortunes of the lack of tools and of leverage. And his having chosen to return at precisely the worst moment.

It was a determination to survive the likes of which he had rarely seen. He didn’t respect people, but he respected that.

Again she thrashed, the back of her head coming dangerously close to cracking against the rock behind her. A cold spark of worry ignited in his mind at the thought, and he laid his other hand flat against her chest, directly over the frantic flutter of her heartbeat. Gently he pressed, back, back, until her shoulder blades met the wall. She kicked out at him instead, landing a solid blow to his thigh with her heel. It would have been a brutal and painful hit were he not so seemingly immune to harm.

That was another thing he didn’t understand, among the many. Before he’d died he had been just like any other person. He had bled and bruised easily, scraped knees and stubbed toes had hurt. He had often cried over such little hurts. Now, though, any pain he felt was fleeting, and any injury he took healed so fast that he could hardly trace how bad the wounds had been by the time he could examine them. He didn’t think he was invulnerable, after all he still bled. But it seemed to take far more damage than most humans were capable of administering to cause him real hurt.

Unlike her. He was all too capable of hurting her far beyond the point of healing. Which was why he exercised caution when wresting the bit of wire from her, careful not to grip too hard or twist too far in doing so. He tucked it away into a pocket, then jerked his hand back out to catch the fists she hurled at him in recompense. Her eyes squeezed tightly shut, her mouth falling open to release a scream that couldn’t possibly not be shredding her vocal chords. All rage and frustration.

Jason winced at the sound grating at his eardrums. She might not be all that strong but she was _loud_ , and it hurt. Yet he felt no inclination to silence her. This wasn’t an attempt to call for help, nor any deliberate effort to distract him. She hadn’t fought him this hard before, as if she didn’t care whether she killed herself in the effort. It was reckless, _desperate_.

Somehow he knew that in her mind it was her last chance to gain her freedom. Regardless as to whether it would have succeeded or not, she had tied her hope into the effort, and he had just walked in and destroyed it.

He could allow her the outlet of her screams.

Gradually her struggles slowed. Exhaustion was in every line of her face as though etched there, heavy and dark, and again he felt a twinge of guilt streak through him, there and gone like a rabbit darting across his path.

“Please…” she whispered, and he felt his spine stiffen.

He didn’t like the word _please_. It was inexorably linked to people as he ran them down, pleading for their lives, and so often paired alongside attempts to bargain or threaten. Neither came from her, but still the word caused a sour distaste to rise at the back of his throat.

“Please, just kill me.”

His eyes widened, caught utterly off guard.

No one had ever…asked him to kill them before. Was it some new attempt at distraction? Some form of trickery?

Her eyes lifted to meet his one, over-bright and liquid, filled with tears she clearly refused to let fall. Only the faint tremble of her chin belied how close she was to giving over and crying.

No, he didn’t think this was trickery.

When he did nothing, she turned her face away. She shook off his hands – rather, he allowed her to – and wedged herself into the corner, folding her limbs inward. Curling up into a tight ball. He heard the sobs then, for all her effort to muffle them; heavy, convulsive ones from soul-deep places. And he knew those sobs. Knew them as dearly as a childhood friend, familiar, if partly forgotten.

The memory was clear and vivid as if he saw it in a mirror. His six-year-old self, burrowed under a pile of blankets on his bed and crying so hard he had expected it would break him apart. He had been playing outside by himself, as he usually did, when a pair of other children had happened upon him. He had hoped for playmates, until they began throwing rocks.

It had been the day he learned that the unbiased tolerance of children did not last. He had cried for hours.

He crouched there awkwardly, watching Whitney’s shoulders heave with her sobs, at a loss as to what to do. Should he…comfort her? How would he do that? Would she even want him to? Doubtful, as it was because of him she was down here, trapped and bound against her will. No, he should go. Leave her to herself.

Quietly he gathered the remnants of the smashed lantern. It had been truly decimated beyond repair, and he rather marveled at the conviction she would have had to do it. He wouldn’t be able to give her another. He didn’t necessarily think she would try this particular stunt again, but he couldn’t be sure and didn’t want to risk it. Neither did he particularly relish the thought of leaving her in the dark.

After a moment of consideration he relocated the second lantern from where he’d left it at the workbench, hooking it to one of the beams above and well out of reach even if she stood. Finally, he extracted the little book from the pocket.

For the space of a breath he simply held it in both hands, smoothing the winkled covers before setting it carefully in the center of the crate where she was sure to find it later. His fingertips grazed the pages as he stood, and he felt an uneasy lurch somewhere below his chest. Anxious…he was _anxious._

He didn’t understand it. Why would he be anxious about leaving the book? He racked his brain, trying to puzzle out the source of the out-of-place emotion, and came up blank.

On silent feet he left her, following the familiar path up and out into the house, gathering pliers and several metal pins as he went.

He would stay close for a little while, just to be safe. The rest of his rounds could wait for now. The wire he had strung to alert him to anyone drawing too close to the south side of the house needed resetting. A family of rabbits had moved in somewhere nearby and had set it off. Chances were he’d have to move it. Maybe by the time he’d finished that Whitney would be calm enough to eat again and he would have gotten over the odd nervousness he still felt lodged below his sternum.

~*~

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! Apologies for the delay, I had inadvertently written my brain into a corner and couldn't figure out how to navigate my way around it for a bit there. Unfortunately due to the holidays, the next one might be a bit of a wait too. I appreciate your patience!! 
> 
> I know these first couple chapters feel repetitive, which is by design. It feels natural to me that interaction at this point would be limited and somewhat stunted, on both sides. We are going places...but that slow burn tag is there for a reason. Rest assured, good stuff is coming!
> 
> Have a lovely holiday, whatever/whenever you celebrate, and I'll see you next time!


	5. Bad Blood

* * *

 

A tear fell from Whitney’s cheek onto the back of her hand with a plop, forming a tiny puddle. She lifted it, watching the droplet run down her wrist in a fine, glimmering trail.  When she'd been a little girl her mom had told her that tears were precious things; that if she were to somehow catch one, bury it deep in the earth for a hundred years, it would become a diamond. Whitney remembered once having tried just that, going so far as to dig as deep a hole as she could out in the backyard (all of two feet) in preparation so that the next time she cried, she would be ready. She couldn't recall if she had ever actually succeeded in burying one, or if the hole had simply been filled in by time or by a new plant.

After Ellen had gotten sick she still worked in the yard, even when she could no longer teach. With help from Fatima – the live-in nurse who came every day to help with her care, to administer medication, and the like – Whitney had been able to settle her outside in good weather so she could spend a few hours picking weeds out of the vegetable beds while Whitney sat nearby and studied. Until she had been too sick even to do that much. By the time the doctors found the cancer, it had metastasized. It was in her lungs, her pancreas, her bones, and no amount of treatment would do anything more than put off the inevitable in exchange for more pain and illness. She'd chosen to forego the chemo and radiation in favor of enjoying the rest of her life – the two years at absolute best. Clay had left, angry and afraid; a choice he would likely regret one day. Whitney had stayed, and thrown herself into the adulthood still so new to her. Ellen had reached year three before the weakness started to show. Another five months before she was all but bedridden. Whitney wasn't sure if she was going to make it to her fourth year.

It had been Mom's encouragement that convinced her to go on the trip with Mike. She had been reluctant, which was putting it delicately, until Ellen had taken her hand in one of her own – so quickly withered when just weeks ago it had been full and strong – and instructed her to go. _"You can't spend your life in here waiting for me to die, Whitsie-bat. Go. Have a good time. I'll still be here when you get back."_ Reluctant or not, in the moment Whitney had believed her. It would only be a weekend, three days maximum. The prognosis wasn’t good and time was running out, but she hadn't had the heart to say no. Not to mom. Not to the mom who had raised her on magic and dreams, fed her on imagination as much as practicality. Not to the mom who was still smiling through the pain as though it didn't hurt at all. As though they had all the time in the world.

She blinked puffy eyes, sore and sensitive from so much crying, and finally registered the yellow halo of light which fell over her from above. Another lantern hung there from the beams – or, she assumed it was a different one, since she had smashed the literal hell out of the other. She had been sure he would deny her a light after that. She wouldn't even have blamed him for doing so, since she had proven untrustworthy in the extreme. One more thing she had expected and met with something else entirely. Rather like the expectation that he would be gone for hours longer than he had been.

Her plan had not included a contingency for if he came back early. Granted, she had been fairly positive picking the locks on the handcuffs wasn’t going to work without another bit of something – wood or plastic or more metal – but she had been set on trying until either the wire gave or her fingers did. Not that she’d had the chance. Jason had plucked it from her as though snatching something dangerous from the hand of an infant, even as she’d fought and kicked and screeched her throat raw. He’d simply held her there – one hand lying flat against her sternum from collarbone to collarbone – and she’d known it was only to keep her from hurting herself, but the restraint had chafed like sandpaper and all she had been able to think was how badly she wanted her mother.

Overwhelmed as she had been in the moment by grief and homesickness and little girl fear she had pleaded for him to kill her. To end it. And she was so indescribably glad that he hadn’t. As much as she kept circling back to how much easier it might be, she couldn’t die yet. She couldn’t die _here._

_I’ll be here when you get back. I promise._

She supposed she should sleep, but even after she settled properly on her striped mattress and closed her eyes she couldn't seem to nod off. Her mind kept seizing thoughts and darting off with them in a thousand different directions. Thoughts about Mom and Clay, about Mike. About Jason. She tried going over the last test she had taken before the trip, hoping to bore herself to unconsciousness by mentally labeling the venous system. Of the expansive universe of anatomy and physiology she loathed cardiovascular with the devotion one might have shown a spouse of fifty years. Not even after taking four separate anatomy classes – or three and a half, really – of varying intensity it only seemed to get hazier while everything else grew ever clearer. The attempt at counting proverbial medical sheep only succeeded in making her cranky. 

It seemed like only minutes before the shadows began to soften as light filtered into the cavern and Whitney sat up with a groan of resignation. Come noon she was going to be a zombie and her sleep schedule was going to take weeks to regulate when she got home.  _If_  she ever got home. Because, even without an early death, she might not. 

Sitting up, she rubbed at the tear stains at her cheeks with the heel of a hand, sniffling faintly. The debris from the smashed lantern was gone. She didn’t remember him clearing it away, but he must have simply been too quiet to hear over the noise of her own sobs. There was, however, something else. Sitting in the very center of the crate was a paperback book.

Of all the things she might have expected to see, that was not one of them. Yet there it sat, clear as day and wrinkled as thoroughly as though it had spent the majority of its life being buffeted around in a bag full of rocks.

Intrigued in spite of herself she picked up the little novel, skimmed the cover, and promptly wrinkling her nose.

There had been a time in her life when Whitney had been certain there wasn’t a book on earth she didn’t like. Of course, that had been before middle and high school when reading for class became much more prevalent and therefore much more of a chore, and she had discovered very quickly that she had been, in fact, mistaken. While Wuthering Heights was not topmost on the list of books she considered hot garbage, it was definitely up there by virtue of the sheer un-likability of both its primary protagonists. Having the faint relief-founded joy at the prospect of a book sink rapidly into disgust sent her into an odd kind of vertigo, and she found herself wondering whether Jason actually  _had_  killed her that first night and she was currently in some kind of hell. The thought might have been morbidly soothing, but she knew it was false.

The appearance of the book threw her more than anything else had. It wasn’t a necessity meeting a need in the efforts to maintain her physical equilibrium. Food was nourishment and basic in the extreme. A book was neither basic nor a necessity. It was…occupation, distraction, something else to focus on besides the situation and she couldn’t fathom the reason.

Outside of the hunt – the pattern and context of vengeance – he didn't seem to know what to do with her. Though she was starting to believe that he truly didn’t intend to kill her. That should, she supposed, have been a relief, but all it did was force her to face the reality that she was a captive with no end to her captivity in sight. It was starting to make her claustrophobic, her skin too tight for her body in the unpleasant way of restless anxiety. The smells were becoming pervasive, smoke and gasoline and dirt pressing in on her until they cloyed and choked like a gag. Yet he seemed, in his way, to be aware of this, whether he had simply guessed or whether she was projecting anxiety like a beacon. Why else give her the book? Unless it was simply to serve as an occupation for her brain to keep it off the subject of plotting escape...

Well, fair enough. The book’s spine crackled when she opened it to the first page, groaning in that way particular to old paper, and skimmed. 

_"This is certainly a beautiful country! In all England, I do not believe that I could have fixed on a situation so completely removed from the stir of society. A perfect misanthropist’s heaven: and Mr Heathcliff and I…”_

Ugh. 

Whitney slapped the covers gently shut and set the novel back on the crate.

It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate the gesture of the book, because she did. It was just that Cathy and Heathcliff were the most toxic portrayal of romance in classical literature treated as a wistful goal and not a cautionary tale, second only to Romeo and Juliet. She had never been able to understand how so many of the girls in her classes could swoon and sigh over a relationship so underlined in abuse. Suffice it to say she was going to have to be a fair bit more desperate to subject herself to it again. 

Her stomach gurgled mournfully and she reached for what remained of the crackers. Breaking them into chunks to savor slowly, she chewed and hoped they would be enough to tide her over until Jason came with her morning rations. 

As if on cue, the trapdoor opened with a quiet  _screek_  of old wood and Whitney half choked on a laugh, wryly amused by tidy, twisted little routine they'd developed.

He brought her a second can in addition to the bowl this morning, which incited an automatic curiosity at something new, much like the book had. The reason as to why was clear when he set them in front of her. The soup was broth-based – hot and gently steaming – with bits of barley and celery and not much else, which explained why he'd felt the need to bring another in case the first proved insufficient. Or perhaps simply because he felt she wasn’t eating enough as it was. She wasn't sure how he'd determined that the can of fruit cocktail was an exception to her insistence that canned things should be heated, but she was glad. The prospect of fruit, even in a form she would normally have turned her nose up to as a child, made her close to giddy.

“Thank you."

She wanted to bite her tongue in half. What the actual fuck was she doing, thanking the man who had fucking  _kidnapped her_  as though he were doing something kind or generous? The words had simply tumbled out of her mouth as if pulled by a string attached directly to the spoon she now cradled in one hand. If he wanted to be _kind_ he'd let her go. 

Out of the corner of her eye she saw him still, his empty hand twitching as though he had been going to reach for the blade at his side before checking the motion. He must have assumed she were trying deliberately to catch him off guard. All of a sudden her flare of righteous anger faded into something incredibly sad. She supposed that if all the interactions he had had with people for the past however many years had been based solely in killing them, it might be jarring to hear something other than a plea or empty bribe. She didn't think the words themselves were alien to him, simply things he hadn’t heard perhaps since his mother died. Everything else about the circumstances aside, feeding her  _was_  a kindness of a sort in that he had no obligation. Yet her attempt to recognize it – the reflexive nature notwithstanding – could only be seen as potential trickery. She didn't blame him, but that didn't make it any less sad. 

Well. She wasn't going to take it back, and she wasn't going to apologize for it. She had done her share of pleading and crying and screeching, but she was not an animal in a trap; she was capable of more than simply baring her teeth and threatening to bite. She was a person, damn it...and so was he.  Whitney met the single steely eye that watched her with the caution he might have shown a rattlesnake, and felt the thought reaffirm itself in her mind. He was a person. A very large, very silent, very scary person – but a  _person_. A person who had not hurt her as he could have. And maybe it was twisted after all he must have done – all she had  _seen_  him do – but she couldn't help thinking that if only someone had simply treated him like one, maybe things would have been different. Perhaps he had simply never let anyone else live long enough to try. 

He continued to eye her for a moment as she ate, warily cautious. Yet he seemed to come to the decision that she wasn't actually intending to do something inadvisable since he stood and moved to the back of the cavern.

She watched him, quietly slurping her broth, while he gathered things like twine and small bits of metal and sorted them into pockets. Briefly he disappeared, not back into the usual tunnel to the left but off to the right through what she thought might have been a door. By the time he returned she’d all but devoured the rest of her fruit and was wishing she had more crackers.

When he made to undo her chain for their routine trip to the bathrooms, she held up a hand to stop him.

“It’s ok, I don’t have to…I haven’t drunk any water since last night.”

His eye narrowed, suggesting as much concern as disapproval, and she found herself impressed by how expressive he could be with just that single feature. She hadn't realized how heavily she relied on facial expression until she couldn't see to use it. With Jason she didn't have the easy luxury, but he didn’t seem to have any difficulty projecting when he wanted to.

Lowering into a crouch and reaching for the nearest jug Jason tapped the side with two fingers. The same gesture he had used before to quite clear effect. 

_Drink._

“I know,” she said, reaching automatically for the water, “I’ll be better, I promise—”

Whitney did bite her tongue then. She could be cooperative. She could be polite. But promising something, even something so simple (and biologically necessary) as drinking more water, was an entirely different thing. Still, she unscrewed the cap and swallowed obediently while he looked on like a particularly menacing mother hen.

The tinny noise of bells broke the quiet and they both looked up to watch a dull brass row of them strung along a nearby beam rattle once, then twice.

“What is that?” 

It had been an automatic question, and one to which she didn't expect an answer since talking to him was more like talking to a gargoyle than a man. Yet Jason straightened and lifted a hand. Tucking his thumb and outermost fingers into his palm he touched the tips of the index and middle to the surface of the crate, walking them along the edge as if miming the motion of legs. Whitney was so shocked by the obvious effort to communicate that at first she couldn't focus on what it was he was trying to say.

“People?” she guessed, and was met with a small nod. “How…?” For a moment he simply stared at her, his head tilting ever so slightly to one side as if in puzzled bemusement. She was convinced he wouldn’t answer, especially when he stood and walked away. That was, until he stopped at the workbench and picked up a ball of twine. Bending, he tied one end to the leg of the table. Then he strung it along the base of the threshold leading up into the shallow stairwell four inches or so from the floor and pulled it taut. Using one finger, he plucked the twine so that it shuddered, vibrating like the string of a violin.

Clearly she was meant to understand, but all she could do was stare blankly. Seeming to see her confusion he repeated the walking gesture mid-air, then plucked the twine a second time.

And then it hit her.

“A tripwire?” He nodded slightly – that single, shallow incline of his head – then pointed up at the line of bells. “…connected to the bells?” Another nod. Well, damn. “You rigged that yourself?”

He gathered up the twine, setting the ball back on the table as he nodded – and of course he had. The miners certainly wouldn’t have had use for a system like that. He seemed nonchalant about the whole thing, but she was impressed. The tools that she had seen down here were mostly rusted over or caked with grime. She would bet that he had planned, engineered, and crafted the mechanics of the thing by hand.

She craned her head back to peer up at the line of bells that had just clanged; a different set than the ones she had heard and seen ringing earlier. Each grouping must be rigged to a different wire, probably so that he could determine where the people were depending on which bells rang. He must have lines like that one strung all over the place, around the house, the lake, the surrounding grounds. They must have set one off that day, or that night. She didn’t remember stepping into a wire or cord or anything, but there had been four other people and any one of them could have done.

Jason had resumed gathering supplies, this time tucking a knife with a blade that must have been as long as her forearm into his belt opposite the machete which he extracted from its holster in order to test the edge with the pad of a thumb. Readying to head off on the hunt wherever the bells had indicated.

“Did we…” She hesitated. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to bring it up. Maybe she didn’t really want to know. “Did we set this off?”

Sliding the machete back into its holster, Jason shook his head. Lifting a hand, he tapped the sack over the place where his right ear would be.

“You heard us.”

It hadn’t been a question – his gesture had been clear enough – but he still answered with a nod. They had been loud, then. Well…that was marginally better than running into a trap. But not by a lot.

It struck her suddenly that they had just held an entire conversation. A totally menial, normal conversation, minus the circumstances and his usual silence. What was stranger than the oddity of such a thing, was how easy it had been. At no point had she thought his attempts to answer strange until this very second, as she considered how very much he _didn’t_ have to do so. And how much she hadn’t had to carry on with clarifying questions. She wasn’t sure what that meant, and was fairly sure he didn’t, either. Up until now neither of them had seemed inclined toward much more than the most basic forms of interaction. Maybe they had each decided, in their own ways, to make the best of the situation.

He pointed to the jug on the crate in a final command for her to hydrate before slipping silently into the tunnel.

*

Jason was at a something of a loss. In fact, he was starting to think that being at a loss was going to be a constant when dealing with the girl called Whitney.

 _Thank you,_  she had said, when all he’d done was bring her food amid a hailstorm of cruelties. He had dragged her underground and chained her to a wall, bruised her, denied her light and air and freedom. Yet she had thanked him. For the food, yes, maybe even the book. But she had still done it. And as if that hadn’t been strange enough, she had gone on to ask him questions about the bells. He kept hearing her voice in his head, low and a little hoarse from all the screaming, but soft. The way she had talked to him like no one had since before. Just talked, as if he were someone completely other than who he was. He wasn’t sure what had made him answer, nor go so far as to recreate the basic mechanics of a wire in explanation when he owed her none. In the moment he hadn’t questioned the impulse to do so, but now… He didn’t know if it had been out of some need to keep her calm and appeased, or whether she had simply caught him off guard. Or, more unsettling still, whether she had managed to tap into some part of him he had thought long since washed away by lake water and mud. He had assumed all traces of that boy who longed for something to ease the loneliness were dead, yet he had seized upon the questions and clutched them like he might have his stuffed bear. Automatically? Instinctively?

Still, conversing with her – if what they had done could be termed in such a way – had not been unpleasant. She had been engaged, curious, and had followed his pantomimed responses far more efficiently than he might have assumed.

He recalled the way her eyes had widened upon his explanation of his signal system, with surprise and…something else. Something that wasn’t fear, but rounded the pupils in a similar way, the warmth of her irises sparking. From farther away they seemed simply a warm brown, but when he got closer he could see the green, threads of it radiating out from the pupils amid flecks of gold.

He stopped short. Why was he thinking about her eyes?

The frown pulled at the corners of his mouth and between his brows. He was not accustomed to being anything other than in complete control of his thoughts, but just now he did not feel controlled. He felt...odd, unsettled. His mind seemed to be pulling itself in directions he had not chosen and had not approved of its own volition. Something he couldn't ever remember happening before.

With a quiet huff of breath, he redirected his focus to the task at hand: hunting down whatever had triggered the alarm.

The alarm in question belonged to a wire strung along the border at the southernmost edge of his territory. Not too near the house, but far closer than he would have liked. Often enough the causes of such an alarm were animals. But animals didn’t tend to reexamine a strange thing over which they had stumbled. Bells that rang more than once were all the indication he needed to know his prey was human. Considering this particular wire bordered the land belonging to his closest neighbor he was more than certain whoever had triggered it was likely one of the many people he so often saw working there.

Jason heard the boy before seeing him. Most people were loud. They neither noted nor cared about where they tread or what they destroyed, how many animals they frightened. But this particular person was especially noisy, tromping through the undergrowth as though with the intent to make as much sound as possible, and providing a perfect beacon as to his location. One that someone with hearing far less keen than Jason’s own would have been able to trace. 

From the shelter of the trees Jason followed the boy’s path through the thinning trees. He was whistling: shrill, unpleasant chirps compounding atop the rustle and crunch of his footsteps, a bag slung over one shoulder. Judging by their proximity to the tripped wire, Jason calculated that he must have come from somewhere not far from the place Whitney and her friends had chosen to camp. If that was the case, then the boy had come much closer to the house than Jason's comfort allowed, especially now that there was something there to protect beyond the memory of his mother. The boy had more than overstepped his bounds, and the tithe must be paid.

When he came to the invisible line in the earth Jason didn’t pause before crossing. He followed the boy to the edge of the woods where the line of trees cut sharply into the clearing within which the barn stood, watching as he disappeared into the old building, and calculating. He had been in this barn a number of times before – most often to siphon from the kerosene that was stored there. When he had done so, however, it was after dark when there was no one around to witness his comings and goings. He supposed he could rush in, try to catch the boy unawares. But he couldn't know exactly where the boy was within the not unexpansive interior, which did not necessarily lead to a quick kill. Nor could he be sure that there wasn't someone else within earshot if there happened to be a struggle. 

Pacing the clearing's edge from the shadows, Jason took stock of the space surrounding the barn. There were several new bales of hay sitting outside due to be carried in, and the truck – frosted with a layer of rust – was parked adjacent to the door. Both potential sources of cover. Both less than ideal. A flicker of light caught his eye from the gap between the open doors, a tiny lick of flame to betray the boy's position at ground level. He rounded the clearing to the rear of the barn. There was a tree there with a low-hanging limb solid enough to hold his weight. He lifted a hand to the gnarled bark, hoisting himself up and bracing a foot against the trunk. With a single twisting push, he leaped from tree to siding, pulling himself up into the hayloft from the wide sliding door. He landed quietly, knees bending to distribute the noise of his weight. 

While the barn was kept in a state of cluttered disarray throughout, the upper story was especially messy, littered with odds and ends that ranged from functional machinery to the utterly bizarre. Jason found himself somewhat dubious as to whether there was any space that could be allotted to the hay waiting outside.

Straightening, he maneuvered around a rather precarious stack of boxes, heading for the stairs, when the floor beneath him groaned as though wounded.

Jason stilled, startled. He had been in this loft more times than he could count. He knew every weak spot in the wood, every board that creaked or shifted, including the one upon which he had just put his foot. He exhaled, a sharp gust of annoyance. He was off, clumsy, walking into noises like a newborn. Because of her. 

_Stop thinking of her._

Sternly he pushed the thought from his mind. He could hear a scuffing tread on the wood of the steps coming up to investigate the source of the noise, and moved quickly back, concealing himself amidst the detritus. Holding what appeared to be a sledgehammer ready in one hand the boy entered the loft at a nervous slink, reeking of stale beer and – strangely enough – of skunk. Jason wrinkled his nose, wishing for the moment that his sense of smell weren’t quite so strong. Still, the distasteful odor only fueled his drive to have over and done with the matter and he eased from his hiding place, moving slowly, pointedly picking his steps to avoid yet more loose and creaky boards. The boy had just finished stalking what appeared to be an oddly-proportioned imitation of a human, tearing away the sheeting which had covered it with a snapping flail and a brandish of the hammer before visibly relaxing. As though he had anticipated some manner of threat from the thing. He had just lowered the hammer, suspicion apparently – foolishly – appeased, and had laid his empty hand against the statue.

Jason could tell the thing was supposed to be a woman, though it was shaped like no living woman Jason had even seen, and the boy was running his hand down the molded plastic in a way much like he had seen other young men do to girls. But there was something about the boy's touch...some indescribable nuance he had no context within which to define, and no reason to justify, which Jason found himself disliking.  _Intensely._

He wasn’t sure what gave him away – some small reflection or shift in the air, or by some fluke of nature the boy was far more attuned to his surroundings than Jason had expected. The boy whipped around, swinging the hammer with a hollow shout. Jason deflected with a forearm, shoulder flexing as he absorbed the impact of the blow and wood splintered, clattering to the floor. Jason's other hand snaked out to seize the boy by the neck of his shirt, hauling him backward into the statue with rather less effect than he wanted. 

Distracted, unfocused. Sloppy. What was _wrong_ with him? 

The boy flailed and struck out as he struggled, somehow managing to land a hit to Jason's face. The blow glanced off his cheekbone, with only a single dull, painless throb to tell contact had been made. The hollow rip which followed did far more damage.

Air met Jason's skin as the cloth of his mask tore away, falling to the floor between their feet.

The pause was instinctual. He froze, blinking rapidly to adjust his weaker eye to the light as the shirt slipped from between his fingers, and regained focus just in time to see the boy's face twist and crumple with disgust.

" _What_ the—!” The boy took a staggering half-step away. “That shit ain’t fuckin’ right, dude.”

Anger sparked, stone striking flint and catching in Jason’s blood, and for the length of a second he could neither see nor think. With a single fluid motion he unsheathed the blade at his side and slit the boy's throat with enough force that it yawned wide – severed almost completely to the spine. The boy's pale eyes widened, almost with surprise rather than fear as the blood flowed down his neck in a sleek crimson rush. Then he dropped, a heavy, empty vessel of a life now drained. Jason looked down on the motionless form and felt...nothing. The rage was gone. It had left him like a fever breaking, fire ebbing to cold ash.

He wasn’t sure why the insult had rankled. It had been a long time since anyone had seen his face…but he had not forgotten the way the sight of it could warp fear to take on an all too different tone. After so many years he still wasn’t free of the memories. It didn’t happen as often now, but sometimes they would rise up like bile inside his mind, sly and creeping, until his head was full of taunting from childhood, beatings long-since healed over. Sometimes he still felt the hands pulling at his clothes, prodding at his skull, his face, shoving at his back and chest and shoulders. He had been small at the time, and easy to overpower. He sometimes wondered whether the size he had achieved wasn’t the most blatant sign of his no longer being entirely human, as if the determination to be other than what he was had fueled his growth, crafted him with strength and size to fulfil his self-made mandate.

Still, he was not the boy he had been – small and scared and helpless – and concealing his face helped him to remember it. People could no longer hurt him, not truly. Their disgust no longer had the power to shame him; nor did their scorn, their words, or their laughter. He was no longer the one at the mercy of the whims of others. In the end, people were flesh and they were blood and they were bone. Bone could be splintered. Flesh could be severed, cut, or burned, be returned to so much meat. In the end, they were nothing at all.

Kneeling, he fingered the remnants of his mask. He had hoped it might merely be a little torn, but the length of cloth was shredded. He had spent so long wrapping and tying it painstakingly about his head just so. Yet as he stared down at it, mourning the small loss, he knew it was beyond repair. He would have to go without.

It was in that moment, clutching the tattered scrap, he realized with a sharp, uncomfortable start that he was been wrong. The disgust of people could not hurt him...unless it came from her. He knew what he looked like, just as he knew better than to pretend that she would react with anything less than horror simply because she had talked to him so casually. He didn't mind that so much, it was reality – his reality. Yet he understood in that moment that by some chance, perhaps one that he himself had set into place in having spared her to begin with, she had the power to make him feel shame.  As soon as it came the thought bothered him. There was no reason that he should feel any differently about showing his face to one human versus another. He could allow himself some discomfort, as he had no great love for the root of almost all his suffering and it seemed logical to want to separate himself from any reminder of that. But to actively cringe from the idea of one person seeing him? To... _fear_  it? And yes, it was fear he felt, fine and fragile and thready in his pulse. There was no logic in it. None. She was no threat to him. She was slender and brittle, weak from the stress of her captivity, from hunger and lack of sleep. He could snap her in half as easily as drawing breath. He had no more reason to fear her than he had the boy lying dead on the floor. But he did. He did, and he could not identify the reason why.

The solution, again, was simple. All he had to do was go back down into the warren of tunnels, put his hand around her neck, and twist. It would be quick, clean, as painless as he could make it. He could find a way to do it without her seeing him so she wouldn't know, wouldn't have time to feel anything more than surprise.

But the violence with which his mind rejected the idea was dizzying. No sooner had he run through the possibility then he was recoiling from it, shutting it down as firmly as if he were tearing it from existence. No. He could not kill her. Not now. He had forfeited his right to do so the instant he'd chosen to let her live. Her life was no longer his to take regardless of whatever childhood ghosts she awoke in him. Even if it had been he was not entirely confident that he could have done it. Which was a whole other problem in of itself.

His hand curled into a fist about the mangled fabric, knuckles creaking softly. He felt his jaw tighten, tension coiling up along the muscle lining his arm and shoulder all the way through his back. 

Oh no, he was very much  _not_  in control.  

Lifting his eyes he scanned the space around him in the hopes of an idea; something, anything he could use. He could not go back with his face unveiled. He just...he couldn't. 

Something smooth and off-white peeked out at him from behind a tarp, catching his eye. Letting the shroud slip from his fingers, he reached for it, unveiling the oval shape of a face that was not a face. It was chipped and stained, but whole, and judging by the hard, unyielding texture far more resilient than cloth. There were leather straps attached and upon seeing them he surmised the thing's purpose with nothing less than elation. Rising, he slipped it over his face, the plastic surface cool and far less smothering than the sackcloth. The relief which followed was almost tangible, something he could taste or smell as the mask fit to his face as though it had been made just for him. It was such a little thing, yet it felt like armor being lowered to protect far more than just his face. 

Jason turned his attention to the corpse, lying now in a shallow puddle of blood. He could leave it, he supposed. Of all his neighbors, Garrick was the least likely to raise a fuss and send any police into Jason's land to investigate, yet somehow this made Jason less inclined to leave a mess for the old farmer. So he wrapped the still warm body in the tarp, using twine from the ball in his pocket to secure it in place and hauling it over a shoulder.

On the way out, he used the front door.

Whitney was asleep when he descended back down into the tunnel, or so he'd thought. She must have heard him, or heard the rustle of the tarp as he maneuvered the body of the boy through the narrow end of the passage, for he had barely made it all the way into the cavern before she was sitting up, blinking sleepily and glancing around at him. A second later she jumped, slapping a hand to her chest with a rattle of chain, her eyes flaring wide in the dark.  " _Jesus—!_ " she wheezed, as breathy as if she had just run a great distance and somewhat exasperated. Clearly he had startled her, or the mask had. "I thought you were..."

He could tell the instant she realized what it was he carried. Everything about her changed. Tension sang in every line of body, muscles going tight as a bowstring. Her expression tightened around her eyes. The blood left her already pale face, leaving her paper white and drawn. He could feel her body heat spike from all the way across the chamber, hear the stress surging through her veins like an electrical current. Even her scent altered. The bitter tang of fear interjecting the soft floral-and-earth smells of her skin and hair.

She drew back, pressing against the grating so tightly he heard the muted clang of her shoulder blades meeting the metal. It was as if the repeated contact, the strange routine he had set for them, had softened the prey drive he had noticed – so much higher than that of so many others. Softened, but not forgotten. 

Good. She  _should_  fear him. And _he_ should be glad of it.

Adjusting the weight of the boy’s body he turned from her. He strode through the main room behind the workbench and into the passage beyond, pretending he didn’t feel her gaze like an arrow piercing between his shoulder blades. He didn't care how she looked at him – with any amount of fear or horror or disgust – so long as it was tied to what he did and what he was and not to his mangled face.

Or so he firmly told himself.

*

Fear trickled from Whitney’s brain to the pit of her stomach like sand in an hourglass. She watched as the dark swallowed him, burden and all, vanishing into the passage off to the right, forcing herself to breathe. Her stomach had dropped so hard and fast that she had felt almost faint. She had actually felt the color drain from her cheeks, retreating deeper into her body as though frightened. Not that she blamed it.

There was a long, shallow scraping noise followed by a bang – the opening and closing of a door, perhaps. And then nothing. No footsteps, no rustle of tarp. Nothing but the shallow gasp of her own breath and the thunder of her pulse in her ears.

She hadn’t thought anything of the thing he carried. Not at first. It had looked heavy: not because he bore it with any hint as to it being so, but when she ran it through her head, chances were high it was not something a normal man would be able to carry with near the amount of ease. At first glance it had simply appeared to be an overlarge bag of some kind, until he shifted to maneuver it through the narrow end of the tunnel…and she had seen the feet dangling from between the folds. The truth of what she was witnessing did not hit her immediately, almost as though her brain was attempting to protect her by refusing to identify it. A battle that was swiftly lost as her eyes continued to stare and began to see the flares and dips of shoulders, waist, legs, if crudely outlined in tarp and twine. By the time she had fully put it together, her body had already reacted and he had disappeared.

It struck her then that somewhere along the way she had misplaced her fear. She had not forgotten what he was…but it was as if his caring for her – basic and unquestionably odd – had dulled the edge of her mind, her perception. But she could not afford to forget, could not afford to allow herself to grow comfortable. The instant she did was the instant she lost any chance she had of getting away.

There was no doubt in her mind that the body he had just carried in from the woods belonged to whatever poor soul had triggered the bell alarm not an hour past. That didn’t trouble her any more than had his killing before. No, what truly troubled her was the why of it. He had never brought a body down here before while she had been conscious and aware. What was different about this one?

More importantly…what was he  _doing_  with it?

She wasn’t given much by way of time to stew in her horrified wonderings, for not even a full minute passed before the door scraped and banged a second time and Jason moved back into her line of sight. The body was gone, replaced by a fresh gallon of water – which looked almost small in his hand. She tracked him as he crossed the space toward her. She was still fairly confident that he still intended her no harm – nevertheless, she was wary.

The mask he wore was the kind hockey players had once worn, made of molded, perforated fiberglass. It had once been white, but clearly had been lying about unused for a while as it had faded to an off-ivory shade. The red chevron designs at brow and cheeks were scraped and faded, the surface chipped. She wondered whether he'd lost the sackcloth, or whether he'd simply decided on a change. Maybe he had found it in his wanderings and felt it better suited his needs. Oddly enough, she found the mask far less frightening than the cloth. For one thing, it allowed her better sight of his eyes and therefore expression. For another, it made him seem more human. Which made what she had just seen that much worse. For if he seemed more of a man it made what he did all the more monstrous.

He lowered the jug to her crate, moving the near-empty one to the dirt floor and crouching silently before he reached for a wrist. She didn't flinch, but her skin did break into goose-flesh when he touched her. His head tilted to one side and the mask made the movement seem almost owlish with its round shape and eye-holes. He did, in fact, have two eyes. She could see the right – the one that had before been covered by the shroud – glitter in the harsh light from the lantern, though not clearly. Just because it was there didn't necessarily mean he could use it. 

He was turning her wrist in his hand, handling her by the manacle as he studied the skin around it. He tapped at the metal, lifting his face to hers to indicate the unvoiced question.

"I—"

Her voice broke in her throat. She swallowed, feeling as though all her words had fled, screaming, from her. 

"I'm fine."

She was not fine. But there was nothing to be done, and surely nothing he would do about it. His eyes had creased, disbelieving, as he examined her other wrist. But she had nothing else to say to him.

Her eyes averted, fell, trailed along the line of his bent leg to find the machete tucked in its sheath there. It occurred to her in a flash that she could reach it. The handle was mere inches away from her hand, and if she was swift enough, she could pull it free...and do what with it, chained in place as she was? He would simply overpower her and take it back. She glanced back up to find him watching her calmly, unconcerned. Clearly he did not find her a threat. She didn’t find that confidence unearned.

Again he tapped at her manacles, tilting his head again as if saying: _but really._

Whitney's brain hurt. How was she supposed to do this – to reconcile the brutal killer with the person who bandaged her wrists against chafing, who scolded her for not drinking enough water? 

"I'm fine," she repeated, though it was barely more than a whisper. She pulled at her wrists until he relinquished them, letting her slip from his grasp to fold her hands against her stomach. She felt strangely fragile, as though something in her were perilously close to breaking. Either that or she was about to start ugly-crying like there was no tomorrow. "I just want to sleep."

He regarded her, and the usual silence now felt heavy, strained with her discomfort and her conflict. After a moment however he rose to his feet and left her, allowing her to curl up on the little blue-striped mattress.  In the end, she didn't cry. But neither did she sleep.

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The second half of this chapter ended up being rather difficult to write. Originally I wasn't going to have the Donnie-killing scene happen this early, but as most writers will tell you - sometimes stories have their own agendas and, regardless of our planning, they will have their way. I don't mind because for although I have a soft spot in my heart for sack-head Jason, the mask is iconic, and allows for much more expression, which I'm quite happy to have sooner rather than later. And, like most other things in this movie - the in-film timing didn't feel right. I did struggle with it a bit, though. Hopefully it comes across all right!
> 
> Next chapter is going to start some time-skipping. I haven't yet decided if I'm going to try filling all six weeks, or if I'm going to shift that as well. We'll have to see. I'm also going to be trying for longer chapters as we go on - starting with this one, actually. For reasons.
> 
> Credit to Emily Brontë for the quotation from "Wuthering Heights," which I also, in fact, hate for the same reasons Whitney does. No offense intended to anyone who likes it, it's simply not to my taste.
> 
> Once again, thank you so much to everyone for reading, and for the comments and the kudos! It's all very much appreciated.
> 
> Until next time! <3


	6. Walk This World

****

* * *

 

 

**Day 10**

Bathing herself in a tiny sink with hand soap wasn't the hardest thing Whitney had ever done. It definitely wasn't the easiest, either. 

She had needed a shower something awful. She made it to day seven before becoming truly disturbed by the strength of her own reek. There were showers in the bathroom building: she had seen them tucked behind the toilet stalls. But even if she had been able to muster the courage to ask, a shower wasn't something she could manage with just one hand and there was no way Jason would unchain her completely regardless of the fact that her chances of escape were in the negative. So she had done what she could with what she had – a sink and some soap, and a fair amount of foul language.

This was her second of such makeshift cleansings, and it was as awkward as the first had been. Because of the chain, she was unable to completely remove her shirt or bra and was therefore forced to let them bunch at the manacle while she scrubbed at herself with one of the stack of towels that had, by seemingly her only stroke of luck, been left behind and within reach. She could, at least, take off her jeans and underwear to wash properly there, but as she turned her underwear inside out and slid them back on with a grimace, she knew this was not a status quo she could maintain. At some point she was going to have to figure out a way to wash her clothes. At some point she was going to have to communicate her need to do so, though she was uncertain how well that would go considering he never seemed to either change or wash  _his_  clothes. Maybe they didn't for him, but at some point a lack of clean clothes was going to cause her some problems.

Well. That was a bridge for another day.

A soft knocking came from her right and she started, clutching her jeans to herself as she whirled toward the open threshold to find that Jason wasn't there at all. He was still outside, likely simply checking in to make sure she wasn't trying to drown herself since she was taking far longer this time than she had on any previous bathroom excursion. 

"Just a second—" she called, her pulse throbbing nervously in her throat. She wasn't sure why, after all, if he hadn't tried by now he wasn't likely to go out of his way to see her naked. In fact, he probably wanted to see her naked just about as much as he wanted to step on his own machete since she looked like his mom and everything. There was so much wrong with this whole situation. Not the least of which was how little it phased her now compared to little more than a week ago.

A  _week._  Christ on a cupcake. 

She shoved her legs back into her pants, nearly tipping over and smashing her head into the sink as she jammed her feet into her shoes. Her bra had been anything but new when she'd gotten there, but now the nude color was closer to walnut now than apricot, it had become so saturated with sweat. And it would likely stay that way. Her shirt was likewise forever marked by her time here – ten days according to the tally on her wall and the bruising at her wrists – having turned a whole three shades darker at the armpits, down the back, and below the bra-line. That wasn't going to come out with washing, even if she destroyed the structural integrity of the fabric in the effort.

The shirt was dragged back into place, instantly quashing the feeling of being clean. She draped her towel over the counter. If the weather remained as hot as it had been it would be completely dry and then some by the time she came back. Her hair, on the other hand, was a different story. It was a tangled, greasy mess and as much as she itched to dunk her head in the sink and scrub like the dickens, she knew enough about the texture of her own hair to know that unleashing cheap anti-bacterial soap intended for hands was not going to result in any improvement. At best it would simply overcompensate and become greasier. Her vanity (and the state of her scalp) was just going to have to wait. 

Last of all, she settled the locket back into place around her neck, where it had rested since the day he'd put it there. Mostly because if having it there served as reminder or incentive enough for him to not kill her then she would wear it without complaint. Yet it also felt... _wrong –_  in some odd, warped kind of way – to remove it when its placement there had seemed so significant. Disrespectful. As if her wearing it served as penance for her part in trespassing upon the house that had not been abandoned; a literal millstone about her neck. Upon exiting the bathroom she found Jason waiting as she always did, and if he thought it odd that she had taken so long he didn't wait for any explanation. He re-affixed her manacle, turned, and started off.

After having walked to and from the house to the bathroom twice a day for nine straight days Whitney had a perfect sense of how long the trek took. What was more, he only ever took her the one way – a clear, distinct route from point A to B without any pauses, stops, or detours. It was because of this that it only took her a few minutes to realize they weren't taking the path she remembered. He had not led her back through the camp, but rather veered off to the right and into the woods. 

Unease flickered through her. The days since the corpse incident had passed with a sort of strained peace, during which she had gradually reestablished her assumption that whatever he had done or intended to do with the body hadn't affected his decision regarding whether or not to keep her alive. Still, never before had he broken their routine, minus the time he had returned early and caught her with the broken lantern. But that was different. It was one thing for his comings and goings to vary, but in his direct dealings with her he was nothing if not consistent. She was not too proud to admit that it made her nervous, if not fearful for her life. Logic decreed it unlikely that she was in any danger, but as logic had spent the better part of a week held by the throat with panic, it was a little weary and easily overridden. Still she supposed she should assume it to be nothing unless proven otherwise.

The day had the makings of a hot one, but for now it was pleasantly warm with the sun filtering down through the canopy of greenery. Birds flitted about the branches above them, sharing bird gossip as they went about their daily routines. The air was clean and dewy in the way of early morning, the earth cool beneath her feet, and she felt as though she could  _breathe_ again – that her lungs had the freedom to fully expand for the first time since she didn’t remember when _._  Perhaps since before she had left for the trip. And the movement...god, the movement was nothing short of delicious. By then they had gone about half a mile and it was so nice to be able to walk for longer than the ten minutes twice a day she usually got, to stretch out muscles that felt as though they had been shrinking – literally wasting away as she sat for endless hours bored out of her skull.

It was then that Whitney realized he had taken her for a walk. 

Her eyes traveled from the craggy shape of an old fallen tree to her captor’s broad back, wondering how he had picked up on her fatigue. Surely he had no basis for comparison. Had it been a guess, or was he truly that perceptive? She supposed ultimately it didn’t matter – she was getting sorely needed exercise, her joints no longer brittle and stiff, the why was inconsequential. Or was it?

He was so impossibly big, but he moved so smoothly that sometimes her mind had trouble processing what she saw, turned the movement into something spectacular. It made him seem all the more like some supernatural being rather than a man. Which he might have been. Otherwise he had simply trained himself to such an enviable grace. Either way, he was much quieter than she, smaller as she was, as they made their way through the undergrowth.

There was an interesting rightness to the sight of him here, amidst the birds and wild blackberries, the flowering trees dispersed among the evergreens. He fit here in a way that she did not. Not merely because it was the space in which he was home, although that was part of it. It was his utter separateness from civilization in all its constant chaos. Nature was chaos too, of course, but the chaos of human nature seemed almost intrinsically at war with nature in the way it sought to shape and change that which would do neither. He was humanity at its very root, the way it once had been – moving with the current of the earth rather than against it.

What did he do when he wasn’t killing? Did he search for food and supplies like any other man that lived out in the wilderness like this might? Or did he simply revert to a state of rest, a sentinel of stone to be awakened again upon the next inevitable intrusion upon this land he guarded? And make no mistake it was his land now, whether it had begun that way or not. It would be easy to believe he was something other. But somehow she didn’t think he was. At least, not entirely. 

The absence of the bag had left more than just his right eye uncovered. She could clearly see his neck now; thick with muscle as she'd surmised it must be, though said muscle lay somewhat oddly at the right side, as though it had twisted under the skin. The back of his head was visible now too, covered only by the straps which held his new mask in place, and while she had only guessed that the second picture in the locket must be him as a little boy she knew now without a doubt that it was. It was different from the back, but the enlargement of the cranium was too similar to be just coincidental. As with the neck muscle, it was primarily the right side that was affected. The skull shape was lumpy and uneven as though it had bulged slightly under pressure and settled that way, which could be clearly seen through an extremely sparse amount of hair. What strands he did have were long enough to brush his collar, thin and wispy and pale, the color of sun-bleached wheat. 

Almost all the stories she'd heard – limited almost solely to the ones Wade had delighted (and insisted) in telling – declared him to be deformed. From the sound of them, she might have expected someone with a hunched back and a twisted leg, someone who struggled to move or to function. Jason did not fit the image painted for her.

Unless...unless she wasn't yet seeing the worst of it. Perhaps that was why he hid his face. That was all it would really take, after all. As tolerant and enlightened as it pretended to be, the world was cruel to anyone who deviated too much from what its perceived threshold of normalcy. He most certainly would have been old enough to feel the sting of that cruelty and young enough to be scarred by it, poor thing. 

She frowned. The thought had come to her naturally. It was instinctive to sympathize with suffering, a trait that was likely to be her greatest asset and worst enemy when she began her nursing career. She didn't reject the sentiment, after all suffering was suffering, yet the cruelty she imagined – and she could imagine quite a bit – did not justify killing.

When they came to the stream Jason stopped. His head had been in constant motion along the way, swiveling from side to side as he scanned the spaces around them, and he had routinely angled his face back to check on her as they walked. She knew he'd heard her tromping along behind him, felt her weight at the end of the chain. It had seemed more like he was making sure she was doing all right rather than to ensure she was still there. Yet now he turned to her properly, beckoning her to the water. Cupping his empty hand he made a shallow scooping motion and lifted it to his mask to mime drinking. She understood what he wanted, but hesitated before kneeling at the water’s edge. The stream was shallow, though it was wide and moving relatively quickly. And she  _was_  thirsty – which meant she was already dehydrated…

In the end it was her firm belief that he would not direct her to drink something dangerous which coaxed her to lower her hands into the water and bring it to her mouth. She drank slowly, filling her hands several times with spring-water that flowed cool and sweet down her throat. After days of tepid bottled water, it was an unexpected moment of pleasure. She savored every mouthful, eyes drifting closed in relish.

Something touched her shoulder – a graze of fingertips barely more than a whisper. Blinking, she tilted her chin to see Jason sinking into a crouch beside her, the motion so smooth and slow that it was almost liquid. He was pointing to something across the stream, wanting her to look. She did so automatically, and felt the breath leave her in a rush. 

Downstream, not five yards from where they were, stood two deer: a mother and her fawn.

They were sleek and spindly-legged, the fawn still young enough to be dappled white as if flecked with snow. Each lowered a narrow face to the water, long necks bending in graceful arcs to drink.

Whitney had seen deer before, but never so close. She watched, captivated, everything inside her quieting at the sight of the animals that seemed utterly unaware of the people in their midst. 

The fawn tottered on its tiny feet: gangling, too-long legs folding to bound sideways and directly into its mother’s body. Patiently unperturbed, the deer continued to drink as her offspring tangled itself between her hind legs. A smile curved the corners of her mouth. Impulsively she turned her head, some muted murmur of delight on her lips because they were so lovely and majestic and she had to, _needed_ to, share it. Yet it was not her brother next to her, not her boyfriend. Not a friend.

Jason’s eye had been fixed to the deer, but now it shifted, lowering until it met hers – steady and… _soft_ \- and for a brief, lightning snap of an instant it was like looking into the reflection of her own fleeting joy. Reality slammed into her like a freight train, throwing her utterly off her axis. Her smile slipped as her stomach gave a strange little twist, as she realized what she had just done. Because how could she have forgotten, even for those seconds, where she was? 

Or with whom?

Quickly she looked away, dragging her focus back to the deer. The mother was lifting her head from the water, large liquid brown eyes surveying her surroundings until they came to rest on the two humans. Her triangular ears pricked forward as she studied them with what appeared to be more interest than concern. Whitney did not have the space in her brain to consider why that might be. She was far too consumed by the discomfort gnawing at her bones.

He was still looking at her, and she felt his gaze far more keenly than she ever had before.  

In no way had she been prepared for what had just happened; to see anything akin to gentle wonder in the same eye that had burned black with rage. Even in spite of her decision that he was a person like she was – breathing and thinking and feeling – she had still automatically assumed him to be incapable of feeling anything close to tenderness. It had been easier to believe that. Easier to believe that he simply  _couldn’t_  enjoy something like watching a beautiful, graceful animal the way she could. Because if he couldn’t, then it made everything else that much easier to swallow. Clearly her assumptions were wrong. She had seen the gentleness there, the same spark of wonder that she had felt at the simple, glorious magic of getting so clear a look at something wonderful. 

Had she truly forgotten that it was him beside her as she knelt there with metal about her wrists and chain coiled in her lap? Surely she must have – but in hindsight she couldn't be sure, which was far more disturbing than anything else. If she had forgot, then she was remaining nowhere near as mindful as she should. If she hadn't, what did that say? Was it a coping mechanism, some necessity in order to remain sane? Or was it something else? Something...worse?

*

Though he had been reminding himself that he should for days now, Jason had made up his mind to take Whitney for a walk when he had caught her wincing as she got up to follow him the night before. The bed he'd made for her was well enough, but he could tell that regardless of how comfortable it may or may not have been, spending so much time there was not doing her any amount of good. It had taken only seconds for him to know he'd made the right decision. He had almost felt the soreness leave her. With every step she grew less stiff, her bones and joints becoming less tight, less like a dying tree branch cracking beneath its own weight. 

Initially he had intended to go on with his rounds as he normally would, check his snares and wires, but had found himself loathe to interrupt the gentle harmony of the stroll. Perhaps it had been the pace, slower than he would have taken on his own to accommodate her smaller frame. Or perhaps it had been the sound of her steps behind him: loud, yes, but somehow studious – as though she were aware of the noise she made and exerted effort to lessen it. Or the way he had seen her take a moment here and there to simply stand amidst the green, eyes closed and face turned up to the light as if to absorb it into herself like the plant life around her, fingertips skimming the clusters of tiny, delicate white flowers on the thorny brambles they passed. Whatever the reason, he had found himself passing the traps unchecked; content simply to be in his woods, taking the time to see it as he rarely did anymore. To see it as she seemed to – as a source of beauty, and of peace.  

Now, though, she did not appear at peace.

Alerting her to the presence of the deer had been impulsive, something done without thinking. Spending his days in the woods meant he saw plenty of animals, but deer were elusive, skittish, and for good reason. To see them, and so close, was a rarity. He might have thought alerting her was to prevent her from doing something to scare them off, yet when he'd seen her nearly vibrating with excitement at the sight of them he noted his precaution had been unnecessary. She had radiated joy like a flame did heat, and he had not been surprised, but pleased.

Her hair had gleamed copper in the patchy streams of sunlight, catching his eye as she angled her head toward him, and he'd had just long enough to see the blazing remnants of her smile before it faded in a dull rush. It had been like a cloud drifting across the sun, dimming the light in her to leave bewildered alarm in its place. A tiny furrow had formed between her brows the split instant before she tore her eyes from his. 

She was tight as a coil of wire where she knelt, her eyes fixed on the deer now retreating back into the brush without truly seeing them. When she stood she was shaky, almost…compressed, as though nursing an injury he was more than certain she did not have. The sudden snap from such unbridled joy to this tight discomfort confused him. He didn’t understand what had happened to cause it. Had he done something? All he’d done was look at her…but perhaps that was enough. 

He resumed walking, confident that she would follow and content to relegate his puzzlement to some nuance in the interactions of people that he simply didn’t have the knowledge to understand. Possibly didn’t  _want_  to understand.

It was habit to be watchful as he traversed even on his own land. He listened, filtering through the menial noise of forest life, of wind or rain or animal noises. He watched, surveying the grounds so familiar for disturbances beyond what nature could have caused. It was to his benefit to be aware and to his detriment not to be. Having someone trailing in his footsteps was not so habitual, and he found himself continuously looking back at her. He knew she was there, yet it was as if that in itself was the reason behind the compulsion to look, as if to reaffirm that he was not, in fact, dreaming. 

She was following as she had before, but the ease in her steps had subsided to a nervous rigidity. She was rather like the deer, he thought, with her long limbs and her instinctive proclivity toward caution. She was tall and sleek and smooth like they were. Yet she still wore a frown as solidly as she wore her shirt or shoes. Again he felt himself mirroring it, wondering what had caused the change and wondering why it bothered him as much as it evidently did.

It was nearly noon and though they had nearly made it back to the house he was becoming anxious to get her inside and under cover as she was already starting to droop under the heat. Then, out of nowhere, she spoke.

“Can I ask you something?”

Jason stopped to gawk at her. Since the day he had dispatched the boy in barn she had not spoken much outside of what might have been deemed absolutely necessary. He had put it down to having reminded her of what he was. Though it would have shocked him had she forgotten in the first place, as it seemed so unlike her to do so. Not when she had only days before been trying so intently to get away.

She seemed to take his having turned to her as assent, because she wet her lips – a quick, darting, nervous motion – before asking, “do you—do you  _like_  killing?” 

A frown creased between his brows, though she could not see it, puzzled by the odd question. He didn’t understand what she was asking. Did he find satisfaction in fulfilling his vow? Unquestionably. There were only a few things he truly enjoyed in the world and that was the most vital one of them. Yet something told him that wasn’t what she meant.

As if she noticed his confusion, she repeated, “Do you like it. Does it make you…happy?”

Jason was no longer sure he knew what  _happy_  was. He remembered what it was supposed to be, what he thought it had felt like, though he wasn’t sure how reliable the remembrance of feeling could be. The light in her face, like sun on water at the sight of the deer.  _That_  was what happiness looked like. Killing did not produce such a light in him. Killing was fulfilling a purpose, a mandate; it was rewarding, but it did not make him happy.

When he shook his head, she visibly relaxed. The nervous wrongness wasn’t completely gone, but it had lessened somewhat. Her eyes – somewhat hazy a moment ago – cleared as her gaze lifted to his face, and just for an instant he thought he saw the ghost of the smile she had lost. 

"I've never seen deer so close before," she said softly, and he blinked, momentarily thrown. "That was amazing." 

No doubt about it, being baffled appeared to be Jason's new normal state of being. But it was at least interesting. 

*

**Day 12**

_  
"It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am."_

With a guttural, gut-deep noise of disgust Whitney slammed the covers of book closed.

She had known better, she really had. She knew all opening the book would accomplish would be to make her irrationally angry. Yet she had held out for as long as she could before the boredom reached the point of intolerability and she found herself reaching automatically for the comfort of the pages and the escape they promised. And escape they had provided. Of a sort. If one could call reaching heights of irrational intellectual anger escape.

Unthinking, she drew her arms back and threw the book across the space where it hit the corner of the threshold with a thump...just as Jason appeared at its mouth. He jerked to a stop, chin dropping to follow the book as it fell to the floor in a flutter of pages, appearing almost alarmed if the sudden streak of tension that strained the seams of his coat over his shoulders was anything to go by. 

Whitney ducked her head slightly, at once self-conscious and a little worried. "Sorry," she whispered, not wanting him to think she had been deliberately trying to hurl something  _at_  him. She'd narrowly missed hitting his head, after all. 

Bending at the knees, he plucked the disheveled thing from the dirt, turning it over in his hands to examine the cover as though it might have some secret to divulge. Then he turned his masked face to look at her, curious and questioning.

She gave a little half-shrug, somewhat embarrassed by her outburst. "It's," she began haltingly, "kind of an unsatisfying story." He continued to watch her, waiting for her to elaborate. "Well—the characters are just really unlikeable. They're supposedly soulmates, but they spend the entire book making each other’s lives miserable and just generally being horrible people. So..." She made a vague _and there you have it_  gesture as if the explanation she'd given fully justified her having chucked a perfectly good book across the room. 

Unmoving, he merely kept watching her, his head tilting slightly in that way he did when he wanted to convey that he didn't understand something, or sometimes when he was simply baffled by her undoubtedly strange habits and tendencies.  

"I shouldn't have thrown it. I'm sorry. You didn't have to bring me a book, and I'm grateful." 

She held out her hands for it with a muted rattle, vowing next time to relegate her fits of voyeuristic reader-rage to punching her pillow instead. Yet rather than hand it back to her, Jason tucked the paperback into a coat pocket before turning directly around to vanish back down the tunnel entrance without even having fully entered. Her stomach sank. Well, she'd deserved that. No books for her if she couldn't treat them nicely. Still, she regretted the badly-timed flash of temper, and regretted more that it had doomed her to a fate of inescapable, brain-slaughtering boredom. 

Some minutes later – minutes or an hour, she had no way to know – she heard the now-familiar thud preceding the steps down the tunnel, bringing her dinner, she supposed. When he rounded the corner, however, it was not her bowl he carried but another old wooden crate like the he'd overturned next to her bed-nest to serve her as a table of sorts – this one filled nearly to the brim with books. He carried it across the dirt floor and set it down next to the first crate, well within rummaging distance. Something twisted in her chest: a sharp, vicious wrench of emotion that welled in her like blood from a wound. It was at once happiness and sorrow and shame, guilt and pleasure, a strange flash of affection, and a thousand other things at once; and for a moment she could hardly breathe for fear she wouldn't simply start sobbing like an infant. 

He had risen to take a step back, masked face still tilted down. But though she couldn't see his eyes for the thick shadows, she could tell he was glancing from her to the crate and back, waiting. Hoping?

"Oh."

That was all she could manage – she had neither the wit nor the breath for anything else. Her eyes were fixed on the mound of books. There must have been fifty or so ranging from brand new to thoroughly loved, some shiny, some dusty and wrinkled. 

She blinked once, and looked up. Then blinked again. His head was tilted, but this time with the subtle inflection of inquiry.

"Where did you get all these?"

He wouldn't answer, but she asked it all the same, as though the question itself were more statement than any statement might have had the power to be. The shrug he gave was somewhat lopsided as if in reference more to the hither and thither nature of the acquisitions than that he didn't know. Here and there. In the bags of travelers. Left in cabins or rescued from where they'd been abandoned along the trails. 

Reaching with tentative hands, she ran her fingers over the cover of the topmost book: an old, obviously loved copy of The Wizard of Oz. So old that the paper on the covers had been pressed, with a weave not unlike that of cloth, and was separating slightly from the board which fortified it. Still, the glue held, even through whatever abuse the volume had suffered. There was no cracking along the spine, no pulled stitches among the pages. However old fashioned it made her seem, they truly did not make books the way they used to, back when the cost to create one was worth the time it would last.

Neither the presence of the books nor the number surprised her much. She had known she wasn't the only person who took books along with her on vacations, and thereby it made sense that they would get lost or be left behind. It was that rather than leave them to return to the earth like so much paper, he had chosen to rescue them, gather them up and tuck them safely away as though they were worth keeping. As if they were important, if not beloved. 

That was unexpected. 

She was not so foolish – or so cruel – to assume that just because he didn't speak he must also be incapable of reading, but if her estimations were right he couldn't have spent much time in school. Still, just because she hadn't seen him read didn't mean anything at all. Neither had she seen him eat, and yet he must. Had he taught himself, as he had engineered the alarms? Or was this another hint as to the nature of the man that had once been a boy, much in the way she had been a girl. She could think of no other reason why she said what she did then, other than out of some instinctual need or desire for contact and connection the human in her demanded, whether it happened to humanize her captor or not.

"Books might be my favorite things in the world," she said, gently fingering a small tear at the bottom-most inner corner of a page; the place where a person holding the novel one-handed would use their thumb to turn it. "My mom would read to me every night when I was little. One chapter a night from books I was probably supposed to be too little to understand. I didn't really care if I didn't get some of the words. I just wanted her to keep reading, keep making all those other people and other worlds seem real." 

For a long moment she debated whether or not to ask her next question. If she was unlucky, it might upset him. Finally, caving under curiosity, she took the risk. 

"Did your mom ever read to you?" He hesitated, shifting slightly, and her heart sank. Maybe upsetting wasn't the right way to think of it. Maybe it was simply too painful to think about his mother. If she understood nothing else, she understood that.

She was just about to rescind the question when he nodded. Just once. A tiny, almost imperceptible incline of his head that she might have missed had she not been looking directly at him. 

"These?"

Another pause, then a small shake. Somehow, though, she got the feeling that the pause was not for the same reason as before. It hadn't been uncertainty, but rather...embarrassment?

Wade's story popped unbidden into her mind:  _"He was...deformed, or retarded. Or something."_ It wasn't out of the question, whether it was hydrocephalus that had caused the cranial shape or something else, cognitive difficulties often came hand in hand. If he was slow, she couldn't tell. One thing she knew for certain was that he was  _not_  stupid. In fact, she would have argued that he was truly smarter than most of the so-called  _normal_  people she knew. She imagined he had been sheltered, kept perhaps a bit too close for a bit too long. But innocence was not the same as retardation, and while he might not have been book smart, he was plenty sharp in the ways that mattered. As sharp as the blade he kept as close and dear as a beloved pet.

Still, fully understanding she might be prodding a sore spot, she pressed gently, "Do you like to read?"

Another pause, far longer this time. So long, in fact, that she wondered whether he had heard or simply decided not to answer. When he did nod, it was slightly skewed. Like an indication of:  _sort of,_ or  _sometimes._

"Is it hard?" His gaze averted almost instantly, falling to the floor in a way that made her think of a child afraid of a scolding. No...ofjudgment. She swallowed, uncertain, but hopeful. "I understand."

A flicker behind his mask. His eyes rising slightly, yet not quite settling on her as if he couldn’t quite bring himself to. Instead his gaze seemed to fix on her hands, the book cradled between them like some precious and delicate, like something living.   

"I'm awful at math. None of it makes sense to me. It's like the numbers don't sit still and when they do it's like looking at a completely alien language." She lifted a shoulder in a tiny shrug. "We all have things we're good at and things we're not, it's part of being individuals. So reading is hard for you," she gave another little shrug. "I can't move like you can. I don't hear things the way you do. If I'd been left alone out here for years, I wouldn't have survived. But you did."

Jason blinked at her, and she almost smiled at the surprise evident in the tiny backward jerk of his head.

"See? Different skills. Each is important in different ways. Although I'd argue your skills are way more valuable than mine are. Survival...reading books." She held up her hands flat, palms up, lifting one and lowering the other like the two pans of a scale. "One definitely outweighs the other."

For a moment there was silence. Then, out of nowhere, there was a soft, dry rasp of sound – sharp and short – breath expelled from expansive lungs, and Whitney started. It took her almost five full seconds to realize the sound had come from Jason. His eyes were crinkled at the corners, but not, she deduced, out of concern or consideration or any of the other numerous expressions she had seen thus far. No, it was with warmth, with amusement. He was  _smiling._ She would have bet her soul and the entire crate of books on it. Which meant the sound must have been...a  _laugh._

She stared, dumbstruck, as the amusement cracked and shifted into bewilderment, until they were looking at one another with what she would bet were matching expressions of bafflement. 

They watched each other while the seconds passed, frozen, and it was unclear whether they watched with animal caution or curiosity. Perhaps a bit of each. Jason was the first to break the impasse, making a vague, sweeping gesturing from the near-overflowing crate to her. He placed his hands together, palm to palm, and opened them hinged at the smallest fingers to mimic parting the covers of the book she held.

_For you. Read._

Once again she felt the sharp stab of overwhelming emotion, and she was thankful he had turned to go before he could see her blink away the liquid that had begun to well up in her eyes. She swallowed thickly. It was such a little thing: a simple thing begun with the thoughtful gift of the paperback he’d probably just happened upon and figured to leave for her. The paperback which he had not brought back, as though keenly recognizing that it had offended her, if not completely understanding why. While maybe the gift of the first book might simply have been under the motive of keeping her occupied and quiet, the gift of more was one made out of real kindness.  

She inhaled deeply, willing the emotion to pass, and put down the book she held in favor of another. A softly worn James Patterson novel. Not something she would have sought out on her own, but also not something she would discard without perusing first. She laid it down and picked up the next one, turning it over to look at the sleek, shiny yellow cover to find the first in a new series of adult fantasy novels she had been lusting over for months. A brand new hardcover copy at that. 

It was Whitney's turn to laugh then, at the absurdity of it all: coincidence and happenstance and luck both good and ill. That she could be so unfortunate as to wind up here in this small slice of hell, and yet be so auspicious as to be presented with a prize like this one somehow within almost the very same breath. She laughed so hard that the tears she'd thought she had banished began to stream down her face, cutting clean trails through the layer of sweat. Laughed until her sides cramped and her cheeks ached. Laughed until she vaguely began to worry that she wouldn't be able to stop.

Whitney couldn't remember the last time she had laughed like this. She hadn't laughed much at all lately – something that had bothered Mike rather more than she had been able to handle. He hadn't understood.

How could he? How could anyone with no knowledge of what it was like to take care of their dying parent while trying to balance school and a job, and keeping their insides from bursting out of them in a hurricane of rage and fear and misery. Apathy had been her armor against the pain. 

Still, she'd pasted on smile after smile for him, pretending his attempts to distract or cheer her hadn't grated at her when in truth they had dug under her skin like needles. Even that night, after he had divulged that he had convinced her to come camping upon Ellen's request, his joking attempts to be normal had felt like the punchline to an insult begun that morning – a remark upon her inability to be there in the capacity that he wanted her to be. In the moment, as he'd made blithe remarks about getting drunk and having sex, it had taken all she had to grit her teeth to keep from snapping back:  _my mom is_ dying, _damn it!_

Sniffling, she set the book down on the overturned crate and swiped halfheartedly at her cheeks. The remembrance might have strangled the fit of laughter, but so too had it brought to light things she had forgotten under the stress of fearing for her life. Stress that had forced her to look back at things through a lens more rose-colored than true. Things like the fact that she had been considering on and off whether she should break up with Mike for over a month prior to the trip. Not that that mattered much now. Mike was gone and she...she was coping as best she could under the care of her captor. 

Her captor. Slash caretaker slash babysitter slash...whatever else he was. 

Somewhere between the moment with the deer and right here and now she had come to realize that finding ways to see him as more than just her  _captor_ was not a bad thing. Empathy was rarely given the credit it was due, or so she'd learned working with sick and hurting people. It had the power to build bridges as much as to heal, and the longer Whitney spent in Jason's vicinity the more she was starting to wonder if the way out of this situation wasn't in  _fighting_  him. Fighting was doing nothing other than leading her in circles. What if the way forward was in simple human connection? 

He had claimed not to like killing, and for whatever it might be worth she believed him. She could think of no reason he could have to lie, and when she looked back on the horrors she'd seen she couldn't recall any sense of delight or invigoration, even satisfaction. She could remember only resolve. A task accomplished. He might not be good as she had been taught, but she was no longer convinced that he was something evil, either. She didn't really believe in evil in the biblical sense – she hadn't been raised in a religious household and had never picked it up – but she did believe in human evil, as she had believed him to be at first. To his view, the things he did were likely necessary, if not exactly good. Frankly, in Whitney's eyes no one capable of treasuring books they could not read could be entirely awful. 

She sorted through the contents of the crate one book at a time, dividing them into piles according to condition. The newer or less worn books she re-stacked on the bottom, leaving the more battered and thereby delicate books to rest on top without quite so much weight to crush them beyond the abuse already suffered. The task was menial and quickly over, yet she was so happy having something to do after nearly two weeks of nothing that it didn't matter. Jason could have left her down here with cleaning supplies and expected her to wash the dirt floor and she would have done it simply to occupy her mind. Fortunately for her, she didn't have to descend quite so far into the ridiculous in order to be occupied now. She had a crate full of books – only two of which she had already read. If she had to be here, there were far worse ways to spend her time.

That night Jason brought her some kind of meat along with her bowl of canned green beans; hot, shredded, and freshly charred from cooking. She eyed it, torn between equal parts hunger and curiosity. It looked like chicken, with the same pale meat and almost stringy texture so unlike that of pork or red meats. But she didn't remember seeing or hearing any chickens, and she couldn't really see him stealing her one from a neighbor. She had seen the shelves of canned goods on the way back from a bathroom excursion - shelves upon shelves with each shelf stacked at least three cans deep – and knew they weren't anywhere close to running out. 

"What is it?" she asked, cautiously picking up a piece with her fingers and quickly dropping it lest she scald herself. He must have pulled it right off a fire, it was so hot. 

Lifting one great hand Jason folded his fingers inward but for the index and middle ones which he separated slightly and curved as he held the hand aloft. She squinted at him, waiting for the meaning of the gesture to hit her. He moved his hand, a stilted bouncing motion that looked so ridiculous paired with a hand so large that she smiled.

"What?" she repeated, having to work against the laughter in her voice to get it out.

He made soft huffing sound, like breath pressed sharply between the lips. Again he repeated the bouncing – a bit more vigorously this time.

"Oh!" She pointed at the plate of shredded meat, "it's rabbit?"

He nodded enthusiastically, his eyes bright with a childlike elation at the correct guess that for a flash of a second she felt as purely as she saw – a warm, simple joy flooding between skin and muscle.  

When she looked back down at the food it was with a dubious consideration.

Well...she supposed rabbits had been hunted for food long before even her grandparents had been born. She did feel a little sad, but when it came right down to it, there was no difference between a bunny and a chicken or a cow, only that two had been decreed food animals by a combination of social and capitalist culture. All meat had once been a living thing, and if she was going to eat she couldn't pretend otherwise, or be squeamish about it. And she had to eat. In the real world, where survival was concerned, people didn't always have the freedom to be particular.  

Picking up another morsel, she blew on it like she might have a spoon of too-hot soup. It hadn't been seasoned at all, and yet that one bit of meat might have been the best thing she'd eaten in her entire life. She actually moaned upon taking that first bite, and chewed so slowly that it might have been the better part of a minute before she swallowed. It wasn't the same kind of gusto she had shown with the first hot soup, but it was better. Something Jason seemed to recognize. He seemed almost shyly pleased as he watched her eat.

Something brushed her foot and she glanced down to see the long tail of a rat slip around the side of her crate. She squeaked instinctively, out of surprise more than fear, her eyes widening as she scanned her corner for any others. As much as she liked rats, she didn't really fancy the idea of any wild ones developing the habit of running around in her space. Though she supposed technically  _she_  was the intruder in  _their_  space. 

Quick as a snake Jason's hand descended, scooping the rodent into a palm and gently depositing it a few feet away. When it circled back – drawn, no doubt, by the promising smell of food – he nudged it back until it subsided with what she imagined was a begrudging rodent grumble.

How strange, the juxtaposition of humans slaughtered like so much vermin and the vermin kindly corrected like an errant kitten. In her darkest points she had not felt dissimilar: that the value of man and beast was unbalanced in the extreme. A feeling that had seemed to be increasing right alongside the protective shell of apathy. The places inside her still tender and afraid wanted to shy away from the thought, not liking the possibility that she might share even this small fraction of a trait with him. But her mind was rather frank about it. She was no saint, in deed or thought, and she was not about to pretend that she hadn't ever wished brutal deaths upon people who wronged her or hers. Because she had, and plenty often. But she would never act on it...would she?

She stopped, hand pausing mid-transfer of another bit of meat to her mouth. 

Would she? 

_"Primum non nocere." First, do no harm._

It wasn't technically part of the Hippocratic Oath, nor was she studying to be a doctor and therefore wouldn't be swearing the Oath anyway – but from the first time she had heard the phrase, long before she had decided to work in medicine, she had thought it beautiful. Beautiful, and _right._ She liked to think herself incapable of causing harm outside of the natural cycle of being alive in a brutal world, but could she really be sure? She had never really had to test that theory, had never been put in a position where she felt she must inflict harm in order to keep her life. Not even here, in her initial dealings with Jason, had she ever felt that instinctive need to break lest she be broken. She wasn't all that sure she would know if it she did feel it.

Jason was staring at her, a question in his steely eyes. However long she had been frozen like that, hand hovering in front of her mouth, it had been long enough to draw attention. She flushed slightly, feeling silly, and shoved the bite of rabbit into her mouth to combat the warmth in her cheeks.

"Um," she swallowed the meat, "could we go on another walk again sometime, like the other day? It was nice to get out, to walk around. I mean, I understand if not—" she really wouldn't, but that wasn't how one went about asking for extra things, was it? "—but I'd really appreciate it."

Jason tilted his head at her rather quizzically, and at first she thought he was displaying confusion at the concept to repeating the outing. But that wasn't right. His eyes had crinkled again at the outer corners in the smile she was quickly beginning to recognize. No. He was puzzling as to why she felt the need to ask, as if the answer was obvious.

She felt her lips curve, the answering smile somehow as natural as breathing. "Ok."

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all!
> 
> Just a few quick notes on this one. Firstly, credit to Emily Brontë for the Wuthering Heights snippet.
> 
> Secondly, I want to mention that I will occasionally break grammar and spelling rules in order to stay true to the way something sounds in my head. I'm pretty certain I did that at least once in this chapter, but I can't relocate where so I can't be specific. Outside of any obvious typos, if you find one of these chances are it's 99% likely to be on purpose. I went to college for writing and I'm stubborn as all get-out and want to do things my way - especially in a fan work! 
> 
> Thirdly, I've been getting quite a few queries as to whether we'll be seeing any other characters. The answer is yes, sort of. I'll be going through the entire 2009 movie - and beyond - but exclusively from Jason and Whitney's POVs. We'll see a bit of Trent and Jenna and the others, but they're only ever secondary characters and really won't be getting very much time. The most we'll be seeing from any of the other film characters is Clay, but even then it isn't going to be a lot of him. I hope that helps!
> 
> And lastly, no one's mentioned it so I'm not sure if anyone's caught it: all my chapter titles are taken from song titles, all of which are in my playlist for this fic. Not every song is a direct translation to the chapter I assign it to. The titles match up, but in general the songs fit the story. Some are really easy to tell, some aren't. Just a fun fact! 
> 
> Once again, thank you so much to everyone for reading: for your follows, your kudos, and your comments. I love you!
> 
> Until next time.


	7. Far From Home

 

 

 

****

 

* * *

 

**Day 16**  
  
It hadn't taken long for walks to become a part of their daily routine. 

He wasn’t sure if he’d actively decided it should be that way or if he simply navigated toward it, but at some point it became that way without either of them making mention of it. Every morning after delivering food and gathering supplies, he would take Whitney to the bathrooms after which Jason went about his morning rounds, captive in tow. 

After that first time, he no longer ignored the snares and traps. Initially he had been concerned that seeing these might be upsetting for her, a reminder as to the unpleasant nature of how their individual lives had intersected. And at first this seemed true. She gave the leg-hold traps with their menacing rows of metal teeth a wide and wary berth, obviously still nursing the wound that was the memory of her friend's leg shredded between the jaws of one. Yet in spite of this, she had proven far more resilient than he expected. Rather than cringing or looking away, she had crouched nearby to watch as he set to work checking, resetting, and mending as necessary.

The work required the use of both hands, which meant he must relinquish his grip on the chain wrapped about his palm. He had done so cautiously at first, watching her narrowly out of the corner of his better eye, unsure whether she would note the lax grip and try to make a run for it. He would let her if she did, for he didn’t relish the thought of the damage which might be done by yanking her back by the chain, but he truly didn’t want to chase her again. In part for its own sake, but in his mind chasing would always be linked to fear and death. And while perhaps there would be no death for her, he didn’t want her to associate him with fear anymore. He needn't have worried. Whitney never seemed to notice the slack on her chain, or if she did, she did nothing about it. She merely watched, her eyes had trained on the movements of his hands and the corners of her mouth turned down ever so slightly in what he had first thought to be a frown, but instead seemed to be an expression of intent focus. 

Such as the one she wore now.

As the earth eroded and shifted with time and the passing of seasons the paths changed and moved, often rendering traps useless when their placement no longer aligned with the foot traffic and therefore needed relocating. They had come across one such snare yesterday and today he had brought the tools he needed to create a replacement – a task Whitney seemed to find especially interesting.

Kneeling across from him, she watched closely as he cut a length of steel cable from the coil he had brought along, forming a narrow loop at one end and locking it with a band of scrap metal crimped tightly in place by a set of pliers. This he wrapped about the base of his chosen tree, slipping the free end through the loop so that the cable closed snugly about the trunk. Jason showed her the snare itself, the ring of cable he had prepared in advance with a series of metal clamps which would close about a limb and tighten with movement. This was attached to the support cable with another bit of metal.

He used several variations on the same basic system, some for animals and some specifically for people. But every trap he set, regardless of variation, was rigged with certain parameters in mind.  

Jason did what he could to make his traps noticeable to the wildlife. He couldn't always check them immediately, and he disliked how much pain and potential suffering this could potentially cause to a creature that had done him no wrong. Sometimes he was unsuccessful, which was sad and unpleasant and never failed to riddle him with guilt. But the traps were incredibly useful where it concerned keeping tabs on people – such as with Whitney's friend. So he kept them, even if sometimes he didn't really like them. Each snare was set to relax when the catch ceased struggling. It would not release, but it would ensure that nothing strangled or suffered damage to a limb. Each was laid with joints that would swivel so as not to break bone or strain tendon, allowing him to release any unwanted catch with minimal harm done.

He positioned the mouth of the snare low to the ground, low enough to ensure that any passing human would miss it until they’d been caught by a foot. Over the years he had perfected the method to be inescapable even for people with their clever hands, perfected the system so that they could strip their fingers down to the bone trying to pull and pick at the knots and joints and never get free. Most people didn’t tend to carry implements to cut through cable like this, and those that did…well, they were a different kind of challenge. But a challenge that had never yet bested him.

“Do you only use these to catch people?”

His eyes shot to her, newly wary. She looked perfectly normal, her face smooth of the thoughtful not-quite-frown and gaze steady on the anchored loop of cable. He didn’t know what to make of the question, his hand tightening instinctively around the chain. 

She blinked once, her eyelashes forming a dark fringe across her cheekbones for a fraction of a second before she peered up at him, seeming to realize his uncertainty. “Sorry,” she added, “I mean, is that all you use these for, or do you use them to hunt food, too? Did the rabbit come from a snare like this?”

Jason nodded, still somewhat bemused. The rabbit he’d brought her had been just one of his accidental catches. Normally he would have simply released it, reset the snare, and gone about his business, but in the moment it had occurred to him that she might like something other than the canned food. As he had eaten plenty of rabbits himself in the early days and knew how to dress and cook them, it had seemed an easy solution. He hadn’t yet, but he kept hoping he might come across another, since she’d seemed to like it so much.

He didn’t actively hunt for food, though. Not anymore. The last time he'd actually eaten was several days ago, when he'd felt what he’d assumed was the gnaw of hunger in his gut and had subsequently tried a can of soup. He’d discovered she was right: the canned things did actually taste better when heated. He wouldn’t go so far as to deem it  _good,_  but it had been better than he remembered food being.

At the memory he felt a niggling urge to report the discovery to her; one immediately chased swiftly by a pang of annoyance at his limited capacity for communication. 

He wasn’t sure he had answered her question – questions? – satisfactorily, but she seemed appeased, nodding absently as she surveyed the completed snare. He wished he knew of some better way to talk to her other than simply pointing or responding directly to closed-ended statements. It would certainly make the course of each day easier, but it would also enable him to ask her things. Things that extended to realms beyond simply her state of being. 

When it had originally occurred to him that he should take her outside to walk around it had simply been a means to an end, like everything else. Yet from the start none of the things he had added to his daily list of tasks on her behalf had ever been hardships. Within the past few days he had come to realize that he was actually rather enjoying the company. He supposed it made sense in a way – he had spent so long yearning for companionship as a child. But he had thought that yearning purged from him, another piece of himself made sacrifice to the events of the past. If not purged, he had thought it content with the company of the animals he kept: the rats and birds and rabbits and other living things he crossed paths with. To find himself able not only to tolerate a human sharing his space but to enjoy it was something of a revelation. Clearly the lonely child was still in him somewhere.

They moved along, walking down a deer-trail that led adjacent to the stream, and Jason continued to puzzle over his current predicament. He couldn't decide whether the possibility of this mutual harmony could have been found in any person, or whether it was something he should attribute specifically to Whitney. 

In truth, he didn't think he would have allowed anyone to live as long outside of the very particular set of circumstances. The sole reason he hadn't killed her had been the resemblance he'd seen, or thought he'd seen. That was all. Without that, he couldn't imagine anything else that would have kept him from a killing blow. By that logic, only a female would have made it so long. By the following logic, only a female with her particular looks. After that, the variables grew too numerous to account for. She could have been less astute than she was; less cautious, refused to follow his nudges, continued to fight until he wound up killing her by accident. She could have been less brave. That was important, he thought. The precise combination of caution and the sheer will to survive that he hadn't been able to regard with anything but respect. No, Jason thought. The chances of any other person managing to make it this far were too slim to measure. The chances of him actually enjoying their company the way he did Whitney's were slimmer still. 

And he did enjoy it. It did still occasionally unnerve him, if for nothing else than the sheer oddness of it. Yet he enjoyed her curiosity, her interest in the trappings of his patterned, solitary life. He liked the way she seemed so self-aware when she walked and spoke, rather then mindlessly chattering or stomping about. She had never barraged him with pleas or demands for explanation, of which he had heard plenty in his time. She never seemed to take for granted the earth beneath her – odd as that seemed, but he knew no other way to think of it. She seemed...present in a way he had never seen another person emulate before. Not hikers or campers or hunters, vacationer or forest ranger. She no longer seemed to resent being there as she had before. She watched and she listened as he watched and listened, though perhaps not for the same things. He found himself wanting to know more; found himself brimming with questions he had no means with which to ask. With the questions came a frustration that seemed almost inevitable now, because while there was nothing he could do to change it he still wanted to – which was not something he was familiar with. He didn't fight what was. It wasn't in his nature to do so – it made no _sense_ to do so. Yet here he was. 

A rustle reached his ears, followed immediately by a sharp curse and a thud. He turned in time to see Whitney sliding several feet back down the slope, scrabbling for purchase against the dry dirt with her bound hands. The ground had risen beneath their feet, forming a shallow incline that had grown progressively less shallow the further they went that he only just noticed. He was already moving toward her when she righted herself, bracing his weight sideways against the pull of gravity as he reached to help her. The chain rattled as she gripped him, her hands almost comically small against his. 

She winced as she levered herself upright, carefully extending and retracting her knee as if to shake out a pinch of pain. Had she hurt herself? 

He pointed to the knee, asking with his eyes.

"It's fine," she said with an exhale harsh with annoyance, "just banged it going down."

He regarded her for a moment, not sure he believed her. She used the word  _fine_ so often, and so often when he knew very well that she was _not_  the definition of the word in any way. He didn't much care for that, didn't understand why she seemed to feel the need to cover up pain or frustration or anger with this overly-mild descriptor. 

While he might not be skilled at differentiating or defining the subtle intricacies, he was rather good at reading body language, and facial expression – it seemed – spoke just as loudly as did the rest of the body. He hadn't spent much time reading faces before, hadn't had the need to, and he couldn't be sure whether Whitney was no more or less expressive than most people, or whether she was individual that way. Whichever it was, he could tell there was much she buried, even if only within his presence. He didn't think it was out of any desire to hide from him specifically, but she was doing it all the same: repressing, concealing. Determined, perhaps, not to feel certain things. A coping mechanism of sorts, he guessed. He could understand that well enough, although he sometimes wondered how she didn't simply burst from all the things she didn't express. And he did hope she no longer felt afraid. 

That was another thing entirely: this need to be as unthreatening as possible around her. Not days past he had been glad of her fear, and yet now...he didn't know quite what had changed. 

He recalled the way she had talked to him about her love of books – the way she had shrugged off his lack of true reading prowess as simply a fact, not a weakness. She hadn't looked at him with pity or with scorn. She had offered up a failing of her own. Not that he recollected being all that fond of mathematics either, but that was beside the point. Then – to make a strange conversation stranger – she had gone and complimented his ability to survive. He hadn't known what to make of that. It had been a good thing, he knew that much, but he had felt oddly shy hearing it, shy and pleased and strangely comforted.

And he had laughed.  _Laughed_  for the first time in...he had no way to know how long. So long that the doing of it had felt like turning a rusted bolt in his own throat; difficult, but good.

Whitney had been occupied brushing leaves and browned fir needles from her clothes, and when she looked up to find him watching she frowned, a small, fine crease forming between her dark brows.

"What?" She glanced down at herself, then back up at him. 

Again he pointed to her knee, wanting to be sure. He couldn't have her walking on an injured leg and risk hurting it beyond the point of his capacity to treat. 

She rolled her eyes skyward, as if imploring the birds in the trees overheard to intervene on her behalf – something he found as amusing as much as baffling. Then, sighing, she took a couple steps sideways up the slope: her stride smooth as she outpaced him a ways without any hitch or hint of strain. 

"See?" she insisted with deliberate patience, "it's fine."

While convinced that she was unhurt, he was still not overly pleased with the situation. What if she fell again? What if next time the fall was worse? He'd seen the way she had clawed at the ground as she slid, trying to find purchase without the proper leverage to do so and knew that if he was going to lead her around in the woods on uneven ground he could not keep her hands bound the way they were. It was unnecessary, and it was cruel.

He was many things, this he well knew – but he would not be cruel.

Sliding his free hand into the inner pocket of his coat where he kept the keys he extracted the one for the manacles, gesturing for her hands. 

He did his best not to reach for her without reason. He didn't know what it was about this that upset her, but sometimes when he reached she started like a rabbit, the whites of her eyes blowing wide and her pulse jumping in her throat. She seemed to understand that he didn't intend to hurt her – if not that he actively didn't wish to – yet every once in a while she seemed to revert back to the prey state from weeks ago, just for a moment, before the fear ebbed like the last remnants of a nightmare dissolving into wakefulness. The occurrences of this had become less and less with the passage of days, but he still felt the need to avoid both it and the sourness the sight of it left in his mouth. So when he held out his hand, he kept it there, inviting, waiting for her to close the distance by setting her wrist in his palm.

Confusion had deepened the furrow at her brow, giving her face an almost stern countenance – one that he could see being rather intimidating should she utilize it for the purposes of chastisement. "What are you doing?" Whitney asked as he slid back the cover to the lock and inserted the key, though he rather assumed the answer obvious as he loosened the manacle to free her right hand.

He closed the empty cuff about the length of chain so that it didn't dangle precariously and tucked the key away, miming with his arms that should she fall again she would be able to better use her hands to catch herself. Understanding dawned in her face, and he felt the small kernel of warmth in his chest that was beginning to become familiar in these moments of successful communication. Every time she correctly interpreted his wordless attempts to speak to her it was like being rewarded with tiny drops of sunlight. 

Turning, he continued on, careful to keep slack on the chain as he did so. 

They stopped at three more traps before he circled back around the lake. He made it a point to have her back under cover by the hottest part of the day simply because if she were to get overheated or sick, he would have no idea how to take care of her. She didn’t seem to mind so much now that he ensured she got plenty of time to walk around.

“So I know I sort of asked already…” Whitney’s voice arose behind him as he bent to pull the trapdoor open. “But, is there something you want, or want me to do? Not that I’m not happy to be alive, because I am. It’s just—you can just nod yes or no and I can guess.”

Her eyes tracked him as he stood, settling on his masked face as he shook his head.

“No. No there’s nothing you want?” she clarified. The words came slowly, as though she herself were trying to sort out his answer rather than to ensure he understood.

If there was one thing he would happily admit to appreciating about his guest it was that she didn’t treat him like he was slow simply because he couldn’t speak or read well. He knew what she was asking. He knew what she wanted, and knew that he was only going to disappoint her.

He shook his head a second time, readying himself for the inevitable plea to be set free, and for the anger that would surely follow. He had all but admitted to having no real reason for keeping her. Yet he had no way to explain that to release her would be to break his vow, no way to explain that while the escape from this state of limbo she resided in could be found in her death, he could not bring himself to kill her. Even if he had all the words in the world and a means with which to use them, she would not have understood.

When he denied her the release that would, he knew, seem obvious, she would be angry. And Jason would not blame her for it.

Her eyelids swept down, veiling all expression with her lashes. She said nothing, merely held out her arms and allowed him to lower her into the tunnels.

For the very first time Jason found himself completely unable to read her.

With all their early interactions as a guide, this smooth, silent acceptance was utterly out of character. He didn’t think she had truly made her peace with it, else why inquire as to what he might want from her, but she appeared to have accepted the reality enough to take the answer for what it was. Perhaps it had merely been to alleviate some worry she’d been holding on to – buried deep with all the rest of those buried things – though what she feared aside from pain or death evaded him completely. At the very least, he hoped she understood that she was safe with him.

He reaffixed her chain to the metal ring while Whitney picked up the book she was reading, thumbing to the page she had marked with a bit of twine liberated from the scrap pile. She seemed almost rigid, sitting too straight in her corner, as though a tight band was wrapped around her shoulders. She didn't seem angry, yet he found himself hovering for a moment or two longer than necessary. What exactly he thought to accomplish he had no idea. The outcome of her question wasn't going to change, and there was nothing else he could do. It still felt wrong to simply...leave her. Not that he was leaving the tunnel yet as he had things to do first, but the odd, unfinished feeling remained. After another moment – wherein she didn't so much as glance up from her book – he turned, feeling awkward, and crossed to the workbench and the grinding wheel beyond it.

Whitney didn't care for the sound of the grinding wheel. It was a discovery he had made a few mornings ago when he'd set to sharpening his modest collection of blades.

The wheel itself lived in the alcove across the chamber, tucked away, but still within clear view of her corner, which was the only reason he had noticed her grimace mid-work on the machete. She'd had her hands clamped over her ears as though they hurt, elbows tucked tight to her middle. Jason had stopped immediately, concerned, only for her to flap a placating hand at him. Carry on; she had seemed to say, before hunkering down again to endure the sound. He had, but he'd kept a wary eye on her throughout and had finished only the one weapon before stopping. He had to finish the rest – had planned to do so today after their walk. But just now he found himself reluctant, knowing as he did that the piercing grinding noise would only distress her on top of the disappointment he had likely already caused.

For a moment he hesitated, the indecision crawling like ants across his back. To be indecisive to the point of inaction...if he had ever been in such a state before it could only have been in childhood. He did not hesitate. He did not dither back and forth. He considered his options once, thoroughly, and he made a choice. He was half a second away from settling himself at the wheel just to make a point, but ultimately thought better of it. Hadn't he just decided that he would not be cruel? Besides, there were other ways to sharpen blades. None so quick or efficient, but what did that really matter when he had time in abundance.

He changed course, reaching behind the wheel to rifle about in the clutter for the tool he wanted. If all else failed he could search the kitchen in the camp lodge for a sharpener, but he was almost certain there was a whetstone down there somewhere...

Just as his hand closed about the block of ceramic, he noticed the sound. Or, rather, the lack thereof.

Whitney was a quick reader. Since having presented her with the books he had become accustomed to the dry, muted sound of turning pages. There was usually a distinct rhythm to it, yet he had not once heard the rasp of fingertips to paper. Suddenly he was second-guessing himself. She _had_ been holding a book, hadn't she?

He circled back around to check, finding that she was, indeed, holding a book in one hand. But she wasn't looking at it. She had leaned slightly forward to stare at the rat perched at the wooden edge of her crate table.

He was moving toward her before he realized it, intent on shooing the little beast away and about its own business. While she didn't appear to actively  _dislike_  them, she didn't seem to prefer them around her either. He didn't find that odd, for all that he rather liked them he did remember his mother setting out poison and had gathered that they didn't usually belong in proper dwelling places with humans. It was why he didn't feel like a bully guiding them away from her corner, and why he had begun distributing the food he brought them farther down the tunnels. Most of them had shifted their scrounging ground accordingly a few more particularly adventurous ones still came poking around down here. Yet he had only taken a step when he paused, reconsidering.

The look on Whitney's face was not one of aversion or surprise, but one of considering interest. She looked curious and...intrigued, if that was possible. She was nearly nose-to-nose with the creature, an inch or so separating her face from the tiny head extended outward as if to sniff at her. Slowly she set her book down upon her lap, pages splayed open over one thigh. Next she reached into the open bag of trail mix he had brought her the day before, producing a halved peanut, which she offered to the rat in cautious invitation.

Seizing the nut, the rat gobbled it down in record time – as though it were starved and wild rather than sleek and drawing near to fat – before it began sniffing about for more. Shameless little beggar. 

Rather than offer more food, however, Whitney lifted her cupped hands to the edge of the crate and smiled widely when the rat skittered eagerly into them.

He watched, perplexed, as she cuddled the rodent to her chest like she might have a teddy bear. She had seemed so uneasy with them around before...but now she was smiling, stroking the rat's soft brown fur as it investigated her hand for more peanuts.  
  
Laughter rose, warm and bursting in the air like song, and it took him far longer than it should have to recognize that it had come from her, and he stared – fascinated. She was  _laughing._ With her nose scrunched up and her eyes tightly closed in her mirth, as the sound came pouring out of her. The rat had scurried up her arm, he realized, to her shoulder and was rooting about in her hair – and still she laughed as though nothing in the world had ever been funnier. He couldn't remember the last time someone had laughed in his presence. Not while they were aware of him. It was...nice. Pleasant. He didn't know the word for it. 

He moved closer, the better to see, and caught the flash of teeth from between her parted lips; straight and very white, even and small.

Her eyes opened, gleaming with warm humor as she cocked her head slightly to allow the rodent to snuffle about her ear. "Clearly," she said on a shallow snort of amusement, "I've made a friend."  
  
He felt his own mouth moving, turning up at the corners in an echoing smile she wouldn't see. It seemed as if the tension that had been in her - whether anger or frustration, disappointment or something else – were outweighed by this turn of events. He wasn't sure what had changed beyond the making of said small rodent friend, but he would take it and gladly. He hadn't liked feeling as though he had disappointed her that way, and had liked feeling anything other than indifferent about it even less.  
  
"You feed them, don't you?"

It was a question, but even as he nodded he suspected that she already knew the answer.   
  
"I had a feeling," she said on a snicker, hunching her shoulders as the rat skittered across to her other shoulder, little claws no doubt digging tiny pinpricks through her shirt. "If this one is anything to measure by, they're way too friendly to be wild anymore. Aren't you?"  
  
She was speaking to the rat. He knew this, and yet the way his brain reacted was as though she had just paid him some kind of compliment. Another drop of that sunlight warmth sank into him for no reason whatsoever, bleeding outward from the point of impact to dissolve into surrounding tissue and bone. He felt an odd urge to guard against it, to brace himself in case that warmth somehow knock his feet out from beneath him. He didn't understand it – neither the warmth itself nor this instinctively defensive response to it – but as it was simply one thing among many he didn't understand at this point, he managed to shrug it off.  
  
Gently untangling the rodent from where it had burrowed into her hair Whitney returned it to the floor, offering another piece of peanut as a consolation prize. It scampered off in victory, nut held fast between its teeth, to disappear into the noon shadows. 

She was still alight with the remnants of her smile when she looked up again, and he was pleased when it didn't subside into the shadowy, not-quite-frown of before when her gaze landed on him.

He glanced hurriedly down, feeling suddenly nervous at the prospect of eye-contact and half surprised to see the whetstone there, cupped in his palm. 

"What's that?"

Slipping the hunting knife from his belt he mimed moving it over the stone in answer.

"Oh, not the wheel?"

Firmly he shook his head, stepping around the corner of the worktable, shoving aside a box of empty mason jars to clear a flat space, and setting out the blades in need of attention: the hunting knife, a small hatchet, two folding utility knives, and the boning knife he'd pilfered from the camp kitchens. He could feel her eyes on him, knew they widened as he produced weapon after weapon, but far more curious now then fearful. In fact, as he'd shown her what he intended to do, it had been the first time she had not visibly flinched when he touched one of his blades. With a foot he dragged the stool from where it waited beneath the table and sat, setting one side of the hatchet to the stone and drawing it smoothly across the grain. 

There was still a sound: a scraping rasp of steel to ceramic, but it was far quieter than the wheel and significantly more pleasant. 

He had forgotten how much control using the whetstone offered him, how soothing the smooth repetitive motions could be in relation to the rapid work of the wheel. Apparently somewhere along the way the convenience and speed had become habit, grown more important than the craft – than the time spent caring for the very same blades that always served him so well. Yet for what purpose? There was no reason for it, he never felt the press of time enough to warrant such efforts to save it and pile it up for future, more important use. He vowed there and then not to use the wheel unless there was a real need to.

" _Beyond a bare, weather-worn wall, about a hundred paces from the spot where the two friends sat..._ "

Whitney's voice rose above the soft scrapes and he paused, turning to study at her. He stared, puzzled, understanding the words she spoke but not their context – until he realized with a jolt of surprise that she was reading aloud from the book.

" _...looking and listening as they drank their wine, was the village of the Catalans._ " She glanced up, seemingly noticing that he'd stopped working. "Sorry, I can stop—"

Hurriedly he shook his head and she lowered her eyes back to the open book. 

" _Long ago this mysterious colony quitted Spain, and settled on the tongue of land on which it is to this day._ "

For a moment he simply listened to the soft inflection of her voice as within moments she spoke more words consecutively than she had over the course of two weeks. He hadn’t really heard enough of it to tell before, but now he could determine that it was a nice voice. So often when he did hear speaking it was too loud and coarse, or shrill. But hers was none of these things. Hers was lower in register and slightly husky, though he couldn't tell whether this was a natural component of how she talked or a result of not having spoken so much for a while. It was thicker, almost...golden. Could sound be golden?

It wasn't really like when he had been little, he wasn't tucked in bed with his bear in his blue and red robot pajamas. Yet it managed to inspire a gentle sense of nostalgia all the same. He listened as he worked on one blade after another, working perhaps a little more slowly than he might have normally. When he was done, he sat and listened until she tired, closing the covers of the book with a quiet snap and reaching for her water.

He got up then to go about his regular routine while she rested, cradling a delicate sliver of hope that she might read more later.

*

**Day 18**  

It was upon waking early in the morning that she discovered the flowers left on her crate sometime in the night.

Whitney reached automatically, her fingers curling around the delicate stems, careful not to crush the teardrop leaves when she picked them up to look more closely. They were from a blackberry vine, two clusters of tiny pinkish-white blooms. She had come across some blackberries on their walk yesterday, and while she had spent a few precious moments exploring them, searching fir early berries and sticking her nose into the little flowers to breathe in the faint sugary fragrance they put off, she hadn't picked any. Yet even if she had they would surely have wilted by now, and these were fresh as though they had just been plucked. Probably because they had.

He had brought her flowers? 

Her first response to this idea was one of dumbfounded confusion, because she couldn't for the life of her imagine what would make him think to...but then she realized. It was no different than the gift of books: a gesture intended to make the space more comfortable, more home-like. He had seen her paying attention to them, assumed she liked them, and brought her some to keep during the dark hours she was stuck down here.  

It was strange, he seemed not only to acknowledge that she was a living thing but to value that now that she no longer fell into the category of every other person that set foot on the camp property. He seemed to truly want her to be happy, or at least content enough to be getting along with. She was no longer sure it mattered why she was alive. Why he wasn't going to hurt her. She was, and he wasn't. That should be enough. But it would have been a lie to pretend she wasn't curious. 

She hadn't considered before that maybe there was no reason behind why he kept her; that the answer to the question that had plagued her nonstop for days was something he didn't have. But she had asked if he wanted her for something, and his answering no had been perfectly clear. 

At first it had utterly confounded her – _infuriated_ her – for all of five minutes before the anger slipped away from her like sand between her fingers. She simply couldn't hold on to it, because it didn't seem right to. She might be working purely on conjecture, but she was almost entirely convinced now that Jason was nowhere near as complicated as she had once thought him to be – no more so than any other person was. His life had been straightforward, if twisted by trauma and isolation, and she had unsettled it. Not knowing how to respond to that, he was reacting like anyone would in such circumstances: figuring it out as he went. It wasn't that he had decided this was to be her life now. He hadn't thought that far ahead, just as he hadn't planned to keep her in the first place. No, he was simply doing his best to deal with a situation he had created for himself. 

Even if he had no idea what to do with her, she could understand the drive to keep her alive and out of a state of mental and physical stress – if for no other reason than so she wouldn't cause trouble. But she could not wrap her head around what would cause him to consciously try to make her  _happy_. Happy was different than ok. Significantly so. 

Pressing her nose to the flowers Whitney inhaled. 

Mike had brought her red roses once for Valentine's Day – flowers she didn't much like on a holiday she disdained. Within the cultural context within which they had been raised, to do it had made sense to her; performing in a way he thought was expected of him for someone he liked. She was positive that Jason didn't like her, in that or any other way. Not that he  _dis_ liked her. If he disliked her she would likely be dead. But he didn't know her enough to like her, and even if he did, he didn't have the contextual baseline or experience to think to present her with things in order to show it.  Yet a day or so ago he had brought her a smooth, round stone which fit in the palm of her hand and sparkled opalescent at the touch of light. And just yesterday he had brought her a bottle; a little green glass one which tapered with a narrow neck like a miniature soda bottle. Now she tucked the flowers inside the bottle like a tiny bouquet in a perfectly tiny vase, but very much doubted he had planned it that way. More likely he had simply thought the bottle interesting to look at and brought back for her, much like the stone.

That particular thought brought her pause. There was something almost youthfully innocent about him picking something up and going to the effort to carry it all the way back – possibly across the entire grounds – to give it to her. All because it was interesting or pretty.

Was he... _could_ he be lonely? He had been out here alone since he had been a little boy – however long that had been.  _Alone_. With no parents, no friends, no one to talk to him or play with him, no one to teach him how to wash his clothes, or to share interesting bottles with. Maybe he hadn't even known that he was until he'd already made the decision to spare her for other reasons and discovered it by accident. Maybe he still didn't know. Maybe through their mutual efforts to make due with their current interwoven realities he had begun to discover the concept of companionship. Still, whether any of these things were true, it wasn't necessary to like someone in order for them to satisfy a human need for company.

Was it?  
  
Her eyes fell on the book resting flat next to the little bottle, waiting to be picked up. 

She couldn't really remember what had inspired her to start reading aloud that afternoon. She only remembered the compulsion to do so, like some soft nudge at the back of her mind coaxing her to do it. The pragmatist in her was dead-set on calling it survival: knowing as she did that the human soul withered and dried up like an uneaten apple when left to solitude. She wasn't like him, the pragmatist insisted, unaccustomed to isolation and therefore more susceptible to suffering from it. But neither of those things were true. He  _had_  suffered from his isolation. There was no question in her mind that this was fact as plain and clear as her own heartbeat. And she hadn't done it out of some need to see to her own welfare. She hadn't  _needed_  to at all. She had wanted to, and there was a difference.

What was more, he had seemed to like listening. When he had finished sharpening the not unimpressive array of deadly metal things he had dragged out the dusty, cobwebbed stool produced from beneath the table so he could sit near and absorb the words she read. She had been reading aloud a little bit each day since after their morning walks, while he puttered around in the cavern room doing whatever it was he did down there. Sometimes he didn't do anything other than sit and listen.

How much or how little he understood she couldn't be sure. Amidst the pantheon of classical literature Dumas wasn't the most difficult, though complex and meaty, yet from what she could see Jason had no trouble following along, even though she brought him in a good ways into the book. She had read  _The Count of Monte Cristo_ before for a report and remembered liking it well enough. This second time around, however, she found she was enjoying it much more; and while certainly maturity, expanded vocabulary, and general better understanding of how the world work had plenty to do with that, a great deal of it came from the rapt attention of her audience. Even while set in permanent shadows by the mask she could see the glitter of his eyes from beneath and would have bet good money that they would widen at times of tension and peril, narrow at a vicious turn, and was almost amused by how she could have thought him an unfeeling gargoyle incapable of anything but rage.  
  
Whitney paused, stilling mid-motion as she turned to add another tally to her growing collection on the wall, somewhat disturbed by the course her thoughts had taken.

Was she bonding with her captor? Was that what was happening here?

She ran her fingers along the grooves she had methodically scratched into the stone – one for every morning she woke down here. Three uneven groups of five, plus two. Two that would become closer to another group after she added today’s tally, making eighteen in total.

Eighteen days. More than half a month. Not an insignificant amount of time spent in the company of only one other person.

Most scientific communities suggested Stockholm Syndrome to be purely a mechanism of survival or of manipulation, especially where women were concerned. Yet it had been a while since she had truly felt that her life was in danger. Whether she had continued to fight him, whether she had continued to run every time she got even a sliver of a chance, whether she did either of those things now wouldn't change the fact that he had decided not to hurt her. He didn't give the impression of someone prone to indecision or wavering once those decisions were made. Was it still Stockholm Syndrome if she felt no concern for her continued survival or wellbeing? Was it still if she wasn't being gaslit into her sympathies? She had a good idea what most people would say. Yes. Absolutely. Without a doubt. Any form of empathy directed toward Jason – or really anything other than fear or hatred – could be nothing else. And yet...

It wasn't as if these little things had the power to erase the bad he had done: seeing to her needs did not override that he had restrained and chained her down here. Bringing her flowers did not erase murder.

If he had turned out to be the twisted serial killer she had initially thought, then she would hate him still. But if that had been the case there would have been no care, no kindness. She would also likely be dead or else wishing she was. Psychopaths were not complex the way other people were in that they tended not to struggle with the moral scale between right and wrong, or recognize the core difference between living and non-living things. Jason, however, did. Oh, he was a serial killer. That she could neither deny nor condone. Yet if he was twisted it was only by his less than conventional upbringing, and that he could not control. Did believing this make her brain-addled, was it an indication that her mind was not her own? She didn't think so, but if either of these things were true...would she?

When Jason came down, setting her breakfast in front of her like some sideways parody of a waiter, he paused briefly before straightening, touching the fragile petals of the little flowers with an incredible gentle brush of fingertips. And when she offered a quiet murmur of thanks, she couldn’t tell if there was something shy in the way he looked away and allowed her to eat, or whether she was projecting like the loon she apparently was.

*

That morning's walk was longer than usual. One trap had been completely destroyed overnight by a bear or mountain lion, and caught in another they had discovered a fox far past the point of fear and seemingly resigned to its fate which had to be carefully untangled from the wire it had managed to hobble itself with. By the time Jason directed them back it was well past noon.

They emerged beside the lake, not far from where the dock sat like a piece of far too neat and even driftwood. A chill shuddered down his spine at the sight of it, the aversion as cloying and bitter to taste as the medicines forced down his throat when he was sick as a child. He didn't hate the lake itself, thing of nature that it was, though he had no desire to be any nearer to it than he absolutely must. The lake was neutral. But the dock was another story. The dock was neither natural nor neutral, and he _loathed_ it with a ferocity that hurt. Every time he looked at it was to feel his lungs filling, his chest tight and his airway caving in like a tunnel of rock. 

Automatically he averted his gaze and made to continue on, his stride eating up large swaths of ground as he walked. When he felt the resistance of the chain wrapped loose about his hand, he cringed and immediately slowed, assuming he had been walking too fast for Whitney to keep up. She was taller than most of the girls he had seen, but she was still significantly smaller than he. The resistance remained and he twisted to look, finding her stock still, her arm extended slack in front of her where the chain pulled taut between them.

Her face was turned to the water, gilded gold by the soft sunlight falling in streams down around them through the fringe of trees. She must have been sleeping more soundly lately, for the shadowy half-moons under her eyes had nearly vanished. Her cheeks no longer had that hint of hollowness, nor her skin the strange, near-gray pallor. She looked better. She looked...different.

He remembered liking girls in that shy, clumsy way of children. They had been pretty and soft, and even if they hadn’t liked him – or being anywhere near him – he had kept his distance and done his admiring from afar. At some point after he had stopped seeing them as girls, or boys – men or women. Their faces and forms and screams had dissolved into a semi-steady fluctuation of sound and stillness, silence and motion, and death.

In the beginning Whitney had been just one more screaming, trembling human stinking of fear. Had it not been for her initial resemblance to a dead woman, she, too, would have joined the masses, found her place of permanence in this forest of bones. 

It shouldn’t be different, after all she had been an invader just like the others: a directive, a task in need of dispatching. No different than the ones that had killed him – killed his mother. But it  _was_  different.

_Why_  was it different?

The thought disturbed him now – the idea of this pretty, soft girl being relegated to nothing more than meat at the end of his blade. And she was pretty, though he wasn't sure his judgment was to be trusted since he knew nothing of what was considered beautiful to anyone but himself. Her hair was up today, tied there with another scrap of twine, and he found himself absorbing details he had never really noticed before. Things like the freckles sprinkled across her nose and cheeks like nutmeg dusted on Christmastime eggnog, the subtle arch at the bridge of her nose, the little creases at the corners of her mouth. 

Her lips parted as if to speak, but at first no sound emerged, as though to form words had become a chore difficult to begin.

"Could I stay out here for a bit?" she asked softly. 

Jason blinked. It had never occurred to him that she would want to stay outside where it was hot but he supposed it wasn't that strange, considering how much she seemed to enjoy being there. He risked a glance, following her stare just for a split instant before looking back at her, and noticed that her eyes had softened in a peculiar way he hadn't seen before. For just a moment sitting there by the lakeside, the sunset burnishing her hair until it seemed to burn, she looked at home. 

He took a second glance, this time allowing it to linger long enough to see the way the light made the surface glitter like broken glass. No. No, more like stars. Like stars that burst and shattered and danced across the mirror-bright surface. She wanted...to look at the water? 

Interpreting his inaction as either confusion or denial, she pointed back to the edge of trees they had come from, indicating the shade. "You don't have to stay if you have things to do. You can lock the chain to a tree and I'll just hang out here."  
  
He didn't completely understand the phrase she used –  _hang out_. The words stuck together that way had no meaning to him, but he had heard it before and gathered it to mean something along the lines of not doing much of anything. She was looking at him in an altogether new way, one that bore an incredible resemblance to pleading, yet somehow didn't cause the usual distaste the sight of pleading brought him. He was still so unaccustomed to another person asking him for something other than to spare their lives.  
  
She wasn't wrong; he could very easily wrap the length of chain about a tree and tether her there. Yet he felt strangely uninclined to do so, and not simply because he couldn’t think of anything pressing that required his attention.

For a moment he hesitated, wavering and uncertain what to do, before finally gesturing vaguely to the nearest tree. She clearly thought he intended to do as she asked and chain her in place for she went eagerly, plopping down in the grass at the base of the trunk like a satisfied child and peered expectantly up at him. When he surprised her by instead lowering himself to sit a few careful feet from her, her smile was so bright and warm that for a moment he felt blinded. An answering warmth sparked inside him, a match struck to produce a tiny flame that grew to a faint flicker somewhere deep in his brain. 

Was she happier that he had chosen to stay than she would have been had he left?

He looked down, feeling clumsy and too-large next to her slender smallness. Yet if he were honest with himself – and if he listened to that honesty – he would have known that even in spite of this, he rather liked how it felt to be there. 

*  
  
For a man with a face enclosed within a fiberglass mask, Jason was incredibly adept at conveying emotion when he chose to. But the skill was almost more pronounced when he chose  _not_  to.

Whitney had not expected him to stay with her. She had expected him to wind the chain about his chosen tree, padlock it securely in place, and go about it business – if he deigned to grant her request at all. His choice to join her had surprised the ever-loving wits out of her. She had been weirdly pleased at first, as though he had somehow stated the importance of her contentment, when it was more likely that he simply didn’t have anything better to do. Or else didn’t trust her not to half-strangle herself like the fox regardless of whether her doing so was in any way related to attempting an escape. Not an entirely unfounded worry, she admitted to herself. Yet it was made very quickly apparent that whatever his reasons for staying, something had made him uncomfortable.

It took her some time to identify what it was she was picking up on. She had no base for comparison since, from the beginning, any form of tension he had shown had been almost exclusively due to suspicion or concern, and he had always retained the ever-present underlying sense of calm discipline. This was jittery and tight: wavering like something perched at the very edge of a shelf and threatening to tip. To shatter.

The ends of his jacket sleeves were tatters, shredded and studded with patchy holes. It had been too short for him in the arms to begin with, for even what remained of the original hems did not reach his thick wrists. Nor did the shirt beneath it. He was plucking at the tears, the fingers of his empty hand tracing the patterns of wear over and over as he stared fixedly out at the water. It was such an obviously nervous thing that it pulled at every squishy, nurturing part of her. She just barely curbed the reflex to reach for his hand to give him something to cling to...

The  _water._

It hit her like a baseball bat to the back of the head, turning the glint of the noon light on the lake to dizzy sunbursts at the backs of her eyes.  _Of course_  he was uncomfortable. He was staring in the face of his own trauma.

“Did you really drown?” 

The words were out of her mouth before she had a chance to fully hear them in her head, and she cringed, wishing she could swallow her stupid tongue because holy freaking  _shit_  that had been rude.

“You don’t,” she hastened to add, “you don’t have to answer that…”

When he nodded it was faint, as if absent and faraway – more instinctive than conscious. But it had clearly been a nod. Yes.

Yes, he had drowned. 

It was unnecessary to clarify details; Whitney could tell just by his posture that he hadn't simply floundered about and choked on some water to emerge a moment later, scared, but otherwise all right. He had drowned. He had  _died._

She felt her chest tighten, and if it had been possible to radiate sympathy she would have. She couldn't imagine what such a thing would feel like, to try to breathe and find her lungs filling with water instead of air, sinking like a stone to the bottom. Her hands clenched reflexively against the urge to touch him – the second in as many minutes – to lay her palm against his elbow, his shoulder, to offer comfort. As if it would have accomplished anything. She didn't have a clear view of his eyes enough to see it, but she thought she could feel the memory surging through him, through mind and muscle. She wouldn't have been surprised had his jaw ticked behind the mask, the tension that coiled along his arms and up his shoulders and neck was so starkly noticeable.

Watching him, she was struck by the sudden realization that the tight fear he exuded was too much, too sharp, to fit having almost died years ago. Traumatic as that was. It had never been confirmed whether he had fallen into the lake or been pushed, but watching him now, she thought she knew which it had been.

She almost didn't want to ask – didn't want to know. Because if her suspicion was right then it would mean...well, she wasn't sure what it would mean. But the question burned in her, as though it would eat its way out like an acid if she didn't give it breath, to the point where its leaving her was not so much a relief as it was the righting of an imbalance.

"You didn't fall, did you?" 

For a moment he was perfectly still, as though he had needed to catch his breath. She might have assumed he hadn't heard her, mousy as her words had been. But he had. When he turned his face toward her, it was only for a second; yet there was so much in that one brief flash of a look that she finally understood what was meant by the phrase  _a speaking glance._ For the space of a second he ceased to be the Jason she had thought she'd known and became instead a person haunted by a life flung out of their control, choices they had not made. By sadness, and loneliness. And _pain._  She knew the answer without the shake of his head, stiff and minuscule, but the sight of it – the way his wide shoulders hunched ever so slightly inward in stark vulnerability before he corrected it with a forceful lurch – made her stomach churn with a noxious mix of horror and helpless fury. 

She didn't need to ask how, didn't need him to tell her. She could imagine well enough. The stories had plenty to say about the whys behind Pamela Voorhees' descent into madness, the grief and rage that had driven her to murder. The counselors hadn't been watching. They hadn't been paying attention, and her son had drowned. And if that was true, which Whitney honestly couldn't find it in herself to doubt, then who would have helped Jason not fall into the water? 

The campers, of course. The other children; cruel in that they retained all the savagery of human nature and not yet enough adult logic and learning to think around it. Cruel enough to kill, even if by accident. And, in their youthful ignorance, perhaps even on purpose. 

"I'm sorry." Her voice broke, and she had to swallow thickly in order to bypass the sensation of a fist lodged in her windpipe, squeezing fiercely from the inside. "They shouldn't...that shouldn't have happened. And—"

Again her question seemed to choke her, clotting in the back of her throat as though it were clinging there with tiny, white-knuckled hands to prevent itself from being unleashed. But she had to ask. She had to know. 

"—your mother...?"

He moved with the jarring abruptness of breaking bone, his head snapping around to look at her fully for the first time since sitting beside her. 

His eyes were ever so slightly lopsided, the left higher than the right and by far the more expressive. She wasn't entirely sure whether he could use the right eye, somewhat sunken in and paler as it was. It had gone entirely covered by cloth for those first several weeks, to the point where she had begun to wonder whether he even had two eyes. Perhaps it was simply weaker than the other, more sensitive to light or motion. Not that it hindered him either way. He was still perfectly lethal in physicality and in his ability to deliver a look so sharp that she swore she felt the sting of it. She might have flinched but for the sheer willpower it took not to. 

It was purely defensive; that look. She had prodded a wound still tender, if no longer bleeding, and she deserved the swipe.

He stared at her as if unsure whether the mention had been viciously meant or not, but after a few breaths he seemed to realize that she had not intended to rub the loss in his face, or anything equally nasty. That the question was genuine. The burgeoning threads of anger unwound themselves, easing from the stranglehold around his grief.

His empty hand rose, tentative and slow, and she could see the tremor in it, though it was very faint. He lifted it to his neck, where he hesitated, as if he worried what her reaction might be – or perhaps simply because he needed the time to bolster the courage it took to continue. She heard him draw in a breath, saw his great chest rise and fill with it, before he drew his index finger across his throat in a gesture impossible to misconstrue. A shudder worked its way down her spine in the way a musician might work through a tuning scale; one note – one vertebrae – at a time. Yet he hadn’t finished. His arm extended outward, pointing to a spot on the lakeshore not far from the dock's edge where the dirt turned gritty and rocky and mixed with sand.  _There,_  it seemed to say,  _right there._ There is the place where everything ended.

The trembling in his hand had increased, and he dropped it to the grass at his other side. Not, she thought, to hide it from her as if in shame, but rather as a grounding – a source of connection to something stable and familiar. Gripping reality the only way he knew how. Once again she found herself seeing hints of the little boy he had been, scared and hurting and abandoned and not understanding what he had done to deserve it. 

_I’m so sorry._

The words hovered on her tongue, unsaid. She kept them there, somehow loath to put them to voice when they were, at their core, so meaningless when all was said and done. At best, they were an empty platitude. At worst, they were the same.

Maybe she had been wrong before. Maybe some suffering did deserve retribution in answer. Perhaps not murder...but she wasn’t the one sitting yards away from the place where her only tie to love had been ripped away from her, and she was no longer sure she had the right to condemn his actions. She might have thought only to go after those with a direct hand in what had happened – but that was her logic, not his. Judging based on what he had seen people were synonymous with suffering. They went against nature; they were needless, pointless, and cruel.

Aside from that awful first night, he had been completely nonviolent. Even when restraining her there had been less true violence in him than there was latent beneath the surface of every other man she had known. That combined with his rather obvious distaste for causing any kind of suffering to even the smallest of creatures, painted a rather different picture from the monster she had assumed him to be. Maybe it was naive of her to think it, but Whitney rather thought he might have forgiven the treatment to himself, even with the example Pamela had left him, mad as she had been in her grief. He might never have become this, if only they hadn't killed her. But they had. Whether or not they'd had a choice was beside the point. They had, and her death at their hands had been the linchpin, the breaking straw, the final crack to already fragile glass.

Monster? Perhaps, but also victim. No child deserved to go through what he had faced, but what he did was a direct result of it; acting from a foundation of fear and hurt as much as anger. He didn't want to kill. What he wanted was to be left alone, but people kept coming into his space; kept bringing their noise and their trash and desecrated the land he cared for probably for the memory of what he'd lost as much as for its own sake. She had been no different. She had been as much responsible for the disturbance Mike's friends had caused, regardless of whether or not she had liked them. 

Something fluttered at the back of her mind, weak but urgent, a butterfly struggling to catch the air with its wings. She remembered candles – layer upon layer of them – wax sediment building into structure the opposite of how water had beaten away at rock to form the Grand Canyon, a string of battery-powered lights strung with painstaking care over the frame of a mildew-painted shower curtain that had once been clear. Lights like those at the alter of a church at Christmas mass, guarding the hole torn into the bathroom wall. A shrine, yes. But not the kind they had thought. The shrunken, disembodied head within had not been some horrific trophy of death but rather the only piece of her he'd been able to carry back with him, to the only grave he had been able to provide. It had been a memorial, a place of memory and grief. And they had done far worse than simply disturb it.

Whitney's inhale twisted in her chest like a knife. No wonder there had been such rage in him. Looking back on it now, knowing this...everything made sense. _Everything._ From the way he had pulled Mike down through the floor, not caring if it must be in pieces, to the way he had chased after her – dispatching Richie so rapidly as though simply to be done with it, freeing him to move on to the far more important kill. Even to the way he had stopped when he'd seen her face.

On pure physical reflex her hand lifted, pressing to the stitch below her sternum where it felt like her rib cage would crack open. The chain rattled sharply, which seemed to break whatever awful spell of memory had taken hold of Jason, for her turned to her suddenly, his good eye crinkling with unspoken question when he saw the look of horror she wore. She was staring at him, but she could see only the rough outline, a dark mountainous shape next to her when seen through the screen of unshed tears.  
  
"I'm sorry," she wheezed, each word feeling like a weight shoved through a space much too narrow for it. He tilted his head at her, signalling that he didn't follow. "We came barging into your space, into your home, touched your things...” The locket hung heavy around her neck as though it had become stone. “We shouldn’t have done it. I'm so sorry.” 

The apology spilled from her, repeating on a painful loop like the skip of a record.  _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry._ Words just as useless as the one's left unsaid. But these were different. She had had no control over the actions of those others before her little group. She'd had no control over Mike, either. But she had been in control of _herself._ She could have chosen not to follow him, and so she apologized for the part she had played – the trespass, the theft, the desecration – all the while thinking, somewhat hysterically, that she wouldn't really blame him if he decided to kill her after all. Soon enough tears followed, and she averted her gaze, ashamed and feeling oddly vulnerable as they streamed hot and silent down her cheeks, thankfully with no embarrassing gut-emptying sobs to accompany them.

Jason, of course, said nothing. Nor did he move. He simply stared solemnly back at her, with nothing to give away what he might have been thinking or feeling beneath. He was motionless as she cried, sniffling quietly into the back of her hand. Motionless as crying gave way to heavy, exhausted silence. 

When he rose, Whitney followed without complaint, no longer wanting to linger by the water – the beauty of it stained over not unlike tarnished silver. She followed him back to the house, barely aware when his hands closed around her ribs to lower her back down or when her own body folded into her little corner. She felt hollowed-out, scraped down inside like a melon or a pumpkin, bone-weary, and _sad_. If Jason's hands trembled somewhat when situating her chain, if he left somewhat more swiftly than he usually did, she didn't notice. Not until long minutes ticked by and her brain finally caught up and she realized that of course her saying it must have upset him. 

She felt awful, guilt a rancid coating in her mouth. Guilt for the things that had happened to the little boy he had once been, guilt for having played a part in the destruction of something so unquestioningly important to him. Guilt for being alive when the rest of them weren't. Guilt and shame and exhaustion turning her marrow to cement and dragging her down. 

Leaning heavily against the wall, her eyes strayed once again to the collection of tally marks, noticing that in the midst of fretting over whether or not she was brain-sick she had forgotten to add one for today.

Though it felt like raising a weight far beyond that of just her arms and a bit of metal, she lifted her hands to etch the eighteenth mark into the rock when the chain jostled. The padlock tipped, falling into the crate of books with a quiet thud, the chain slithering from where it had been looped through the ring in the wall to coil upon the mattress like a snake of metallic links...and she was free.

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooray, finally!
> 
> Just a couple notes today because I am tired and stressed as all get-out. First and foremost: credit for the pieces from "The Count of Monte Cristo" goes to Alexandre Dumas.
> 
> This chapter feels very exposition-heavy to me, but honestly this whole story is exposition-heavy, and that's just the nature of it when one of your leads doesn't speak and the other isn't chatty. That said, I like this one purely for the self-fan service and some of the things explored within. I'll just leave it at that.
> 
> Lastly, and very important: please keep in mind that I have a job, other responsibilities, and other things going on in my life. I understand that it's hard to wait for updates, and I am beyond touched that there are those of you who are invested in this story enough to follow it and to ask for more. I promise that I will always update as soon as I possibly can. In return I ask that you do not pester me about the time it takes. I will not speak for other authors, but all this will accomplish is to frustrate me and increase stress that I don't need, thereby causing me to take longer. Believe me, I am PAINFULLY aware of how long it has been, and am working as fast as I can because I want to get content out. At the same time, I will not rush to get another chapter done if it isn't the best I feel it can be. I'm sorry that this means some waits are longer than others, but this is not something I can control. Please be patient.
> 
> I love you all so much.
> 
> Until next time!


	8. Shadow on the Run

__

* * *

 

 

 _“Richie’s gonna call bullshit—!”_ _  
_

_“Bullshit!”_  

_“Richie’s called bullshit!”_

_While Whitney had long since tuned out the mix of aimless chatter and competitively blatant insults, the sudden caustic crowing of the two boys snagged her from her meditative study of the dry grass underfoot. And she meant that – boys, specifically, not young men. Not men at all. Not when they acted as though they were still fresh out of high school._

_She had only been in the company of these people for half a day and she was already exhausted. Not that she should have expected any different, still she was left trying to remember why she was there in the first place._

_“Hey," Mike's voice – now familiar to the point of mere tonal recognition – made her start. Her chin jerked up half by reflex, though she hoped her eyes were clear when she looked at him. "Where are you right now?”_

_The smile was quick to form, too bright with far too much teeth, not that he noticed. "I'm here," she insisted, looping her arm loosely through his, which was something of a task while walking. "Right in the middle of nowhere."_

_There was something caustic in her remark which broached the realm of even the most sarcastic humor. He didn't notice that, either. He had just wanted affirmation, attention, regardless of what it cost her. Not that it was maliciously intended, but sometimes Mike had no more sensitivity than the fresh collage frat boys his friends seemed to wish they still were._

_For what had to have been the tenth time since that morning Whitney wondered why she was still with him. She knew why – it was an absolute even split between noble suffering and emotional selfishness. On the one hand, she very typically didn't want to pull the trigger for all the cringey reasons imaginable – she didn't want to be mean, didn't want to disappoint him, didn't want to fight, reasons ad nauseam – even at the cost of her own wellbeing. On the other hand, she also wanted any shred of emotional support she could scrounge for herself, even if it meant stringing on a dying relationship. Selfish, absolutely. But right now it was all she had._

_She was here right now in the middle of nowhere because she had promised her mom she would get out of the house – the same house that she would much rather be in right now. That she would take some time for herself – time she didn’t want. That she would spend time with other well, lively people – which was a need Whitney could acknowledge, if only grudgingly. She was here because between work, nursing school, and taking care of mom she hadn’t had much time to spend on maintaining relationships. She had paid for it, as friends dropped away and drifted into things of past, though rather than discourage her this had only resulted in her considering whether those friends had been friends at all or whether they simply weren’t right for her life as it had become._

_But for right now she was here with him – rickety support crutch that he was – and his friends, listening to Amanda and Richie spew gross excuses for romantic things at one another._

_It wasn’t the sentiment she objected to, or the public display of it. Heaven knew she was as much a proponent for people being less sexually stunted and unhealthy as anyone else. No, it was the specific people she didn’t care for. About as much as she didn’t care for hearing couples calling one another mommy or daddy._

_Ugh._

_To put it as bluntly and simply as possible, they weren't her kind of people. They were partiers, overtly and loudly social – not to mention somewhat ingenuine – whereas she was the opposite, the outlier dragged into the fold by her mutual knowing of Mike. She knew full well they didn't care for her either – quiet and uptight and boring. It was just one more among the reasons they shouldn't stay together. He so wanted her to hang out with him and his friends and to be happy there, when she knew she never would be. Yet here she was, putting on her smiles and talking the talk she knew he wanted to hear anyway. She shouldn’t complain even in her mind. It had been her choice to come; she could have told him no, but the reasons had seemed so sound at the time. Now she was wondering at what point this had become about him rather than getting her away from the sickroom._

_She didn't really want to be home, either. Well, she did...but she didn't. There was a part of her – a part the rest of her would rather not recognize – which vehemently did_ not _want to be home staring at her textbooks without taking in any of it, waiting for her mom to die. As loud and pervasive as her need to absorb every sliver of time with her was, Whitney could not quite let go of that selfish desire to just run away, bury her head in the dirt, and pretend her world wasn't being torn up by the roots._

 _Once they found the clearing, the task of assembling tents managed to quell some of the noise in her head, encouraging her to focus on physical labor and problem solving rather than thoughts. At least for the time being._

_Until night swept in to force her problems into sharp perspective._

* 

Trees sped by, the blurred columnar shape of one bleeding into the others as she ran past them. She scaled a shallow rise gnarled with the knucklebone knots of roots in three leaping strides and darted on into a wide patch of brush. 

There was such a difference between now and the last time she had run through these woods, and not only in that she was adequately fed and rested and thereby slightly better off in terms of endurance. She was more familiar with the terrain. The trees and foliage no longer felt oppressive and cage-like looming around her. While it was most likely true that Jason had kept her well away from any roads or paths, the possibility of finding one no longer seemed akin to scaling the side of Mount Everest. The fact that this wasn't a mad, panicked-animal dash certainly helped, too. 

The chain thumped uncomfortably against her breastbone with every stride where it looped crosswise over her torso, dragging heavily at her right shoulder, but she endured. It was better than carrying it in her arms. At least this way she could actually run with proper posture even if it did feel like she was weight training. She was regretting not sparing a few minutes to work out a way to bring some water with her, though. A half full jug would have been too bulky and cumbersome to carry even if she'd managed to find a bag to carry it in, but maybe she could have searched in the kitchen and found something else – a bottle or a jar— _damn!_ There had been an entire box full of mason jars on the workbench. Conveniently forgotten until it was of the least help to her. Typical. 

Whitney sighed, rolled her eyes at herself, and turned around. She doubled back for several minutes, zigzagging through a copse of gigantic firs and avoiding the soft places where she would leave obvious tracks. Even these little things might do nothing. She had no idea what Jason's true tracking abilities were, and she may very well be wasting her time, but she had to try – to be quiet and quick and do whatever she could to make herself more difficult for the apex predator to find. She had to try.

She realized that she could have gone through the camp. The road that led out from the cabins was mainly dirt now, any gravel left was surely from long summers past, but it was still a road, and must have led to a paved one. Which in turn must lead to civilization. Eventually. But she might be completely wrong; and even if she was right, wouldn't he expect her to go that way? It didn't seem wise to risk it. Not that just diving into some random stretch of woods was wise by any means. It had still felt like the safer route.  

Confusion continued to swirl about her head in a fog as her memory kept swinging back to the moment when the lock fell: when she had sat, frozen upon her little mattress torn violently between shock and a soaring, disbelieving hope. 

Had he truly forgotten to set the lock? She couldn't imagine him _forgetting_ such a thing. Not patient, deliberate, methodical Jason. But what else could explain it? What else but the highly unlikely chance that he had done it deliberately. As a test to see if she would run? Or...an invitation to set herself free? Neither made sense: and for the longest time she had simply stared at the pool of chain desperately trying to scrape together and idea of what to do. She had to leave, didn't she? She had to at least attempt it, even if it was a test, even if it meant losing some of the niceties of the past few days. 

Didn't she? 

Why the idea had brought guilt curl smoke-like in her chest cavity was unclear. Nor had she liked it. Yet she had still lingered there on her makeshift nest as her uncertainty spiraled into a far more troubling doubt. 

She was disturbed by her own hesitation; disturbed that she could not identify whether the cause was fear of being caught and what it might bring, or of something else. Although what else could it possibly be? 

It had been hours now since she'd left: since she'd finally gathered up the coils of chain and slunk up through the trapdoor and out of the house, breath trapped and shivering in the back of her mouth the entire way. It was nearly twilight now, the sky streaked with glorious swaths of pink and orange, which tinted the tufts of cloud in brilliant cotton candy colors. She was still free, still pacing herself between stints of running and swift walking, all the while doubts darted about in the back of her mind with all the too-random insistence of pesky flies. 

Should she have stayed? But why, out of pity? Out of some do-gooder urge to change things, as if such a thing would ever be possible? Of course she felt awful for him: he had watched his own mother's head being severed from her body, leaving him utterly alone in the world. What must that do to a child? The pieces of her so inclined toward helping and healing had hurt for his hurt, natural empathy blazing as she was yanked back and forth between her disgust at the ones responsible for the torment he had suffered and a convoluted amalgamation of pity and protectiveness that she had no business feeling. He was not a puppy to rehabilitate, not a broken bone to be set and mended. And none of those things that had happened – nor any others – made him her responsibility. Even if she was right in her suspicion that he was just in need companionship and affection, she was in no place to give it. She had her own life waiting for her, responsibilities, and...and he had  _kidnapped her,_ damn it! That negated everything else. 

At least it should have. 

The trees gave way around her and she slowed, stopped, turning in a tight circle as she surveyed the space around her. She had come upon a trail edged by slender birches, their white bark all the more ghostly in the growing gloom. Something about it was pinging the bell of familiarity in the back of her brain, and when she followed the trail to her left for roughly four yards, she found the little clearing dappled with clusters of short, wild plants. The ping climbed to a full-on chime.

It was difficult to tell for sure – Jason was clearly well accustomed to cleaning up the messes left in the wake of the carnage he wrought. The tents and bags were gone, the charred ring of the fire pit had vanished from the knotted base of the tree, but she was almost eighty percent certain it was their camp.

She took a step closer, her curiosity as strong as it was morbid. Were there still holes where the tent stakes had been? Would she be able to find the charcoal remnants of their fire? Would there be anything left to hint that five campers had been here, if only for a few hours, or had it all been obliterated – wiped away as though they had never existed to begin with? A metallic glint caught the edge of her vision and a chill rippled up her spine. The bear trap had been reset, dusted with leaves and broken branches artfully laid to mask it from view whilst still leaving the teeth free to clamp down on the next unsuspecting leg. 

Her hand clutched tight to a loop of chain, palm slick with sweat that felt far too like the blood that had coated her fingers. Stomach heaving, she turned on her heel, walked straight across the trail and dove back into the woods at a jog. 

The shadows had lengthened, deepening as the sun sank gradually lower and dragged the light with it. She had a rough idea of where she needed to go and where she was in relation to it – certainly far better than she had expected to having happened upon the campsite – but she was not above admitting that there was a sizable gap in her knowledge and without the aid of light the going was bound to get difficult. Her body had been giving signs of strain for a good while now, and its protests would only be growing louder from here on. Not only that, but it was going to get harder to tell whether or not she was leaving a trail, and while she wasn't positive how well Jason could operate in the dark she was more inclined to assume he'd be unhindered and move her ass rather than risk it. She needed to take advantage of the light while she had it. 

Almost without her having to think it her body picked up the pace, strides lengthening, breath automatically adjusting to increase the power and thereby the speed. When she came to the stretch of seemingly flat and even ground, by instinct she ran as fast and hard as she could convince her muscles to go. She made it almost all the way across the clearing, successfully dodging an old, rotted stump and a patch of rock-studded earth without a hitch. 

As a matter of fact, everything about this dramatic venture had gone far too smoothly. Something that became very clear to Whitney when her foot descended and the rotten wood beneath it gave way. 

She went sprawling, back and shoulder screaming as she hit the ground and what must have been half a felled, decomposing tree. Scrambling to right herself, she hissed at the shock of pain that radiated up her leg. Limping, she staggered forward, feeling the tight twinge in her ankle.  

" _Shit!_ " she spat her frustration. If it wasn't sprained it was as good as, and she was screwed. Although not as screwed as she would have been had she planted her foot in a trap – which she very well could have. 

Shock and adrenaline mixed horribly with a sour shot of relief. Jesus Christ on a cupcake, she was an absolute idiot. All this time she had just been running around out here not considering what horrible deadly things might be concealed from sight. How close she might have come to losing a leg...or her life. Even after having the blatant reminder shoved directly in her face.  

 _God damn idiot._  

She reached forward, straining for the nearest tree at the clearing's edge and seized it. Digging her fingertips into the peeling bark she drag-hopped her way into the woodsy shadows. Leaning against the tree for support, she tested her weight again, slowly, trying to gauge whether she could get away with wrapping it. Although what with was a question for the ages. It didn't matter anyway – the ankle and part of the corresponding foot were already too swollen to carry her far.

Focusing hard on the sounds around her she listened, hoping to hear the running water of the stream. Breeze rustling leaves. The annoyed chitter of a squirrel. The musical chorus of frogs. Yes, good – frogs meant water.  

Whitney hobbled forward, following the sound, and if the chain roped around her had been a burden it was nothing next to this. Though she did her best to keep weight off her right foot by moving between tree trunks as though they were gigantic crutches, using it was inevitable and with every anemic half-step she felt the throb travel progressively farther up her calf. If she could just get to the stream she could use the cold water as a natural ice pack, at least to keep the swelling from getting worse if she couldn't bring it down. 

Furiously she swiped back the hair plastered to her sweaty cheek and took another lurching step into the trunk of a tree, feeling the skin under her left thumb sting with a slice of bark. Perfect. Honestly, did anyone naturally have luck this bad? It was like some rigorous karmic deity was set on thwarting her at every turn.  

What the hell, universe? _What. The. Hell._

Several agonizingly slow steps later, she had to stop. She still could hear no water sounds, only the voices of the frogs bouncing off the foliage to sound closer than they truly were. She braced her shoulder against the tree and lifted the coils of chain, adjusting them so the metal links crossed her chest the opposite way. Her back ached from the uneven weight and from the fall. There was dirt and wood rot all over her butt – which she couldn't see but knew was there. She was dirty, greasy, and tired, any minute now it was going to start getting cold, her foot was throbbing, and she wanted to go home. Why couldn't everything just stop being a colossal asshole and _let her_ _go home!_  

The sharp snap of a twig rent the quiet like the burst of a gunshot and she jumped.

She hadn't been afraid before, but now she could feel the cold trickle of it in the beads of sweat trailing down her back. There were other things in these woods besides frogs and squirrels; things she was in no way equipped to handle. 

It must have been that her internal prey drive had skyrocketed. Nothing else would have explained why she spontaneously sensed she was no longer alone. Sure enough, no sooner had she twisted to peer into the shadowy trees did she see Jason burst from the edge of the clearing all those yards behind her, and her insides became a riot of relief and resignation.

She knew the instant he caught sight of her – knew it by the slight upward jerk of his head, the angling of his great body as he made for her. He wasn’t running, but then he didn’t need to now, with her thoroughly hobbled by her own graceless stupidity. Instead he simply strode toward her, all long, powerful legs and single-minded focus; swift and sure, and radiating tension. Instantly she remembered that first night when he had borne down on her with the machete. Yet it wasn’t the same, and that had nothing to do with the lack of weapon, or of murderous intent.

She watched him draw near, booted feet swallowing up the space between them – stepping over felled branches and sweeping aside drooping limbs as though they were substantial as spider webs – and was startled by the odd flutter somewhere below her sternum; a soft lurch not far off from...anticipation?

She blinked, startled, and stepped back, wincing at the dull throb in her foot. As if her sign of pain had been a shout, the pace of his stride increased alongside his urgency to get to her. 

Just like that, everything shifted, her mind transposing the scattered fragments of fear into something altogether different. The menace he once exuded had left him long ago, but now she saw something else in the way he stalked her like the predator he was. As he drew near enough for her to see the intensity glittering behind the holes in his mask she realized with a breathless jolt that she wasn't sure he was going to stop when he reached her. For a brief, bewildering instant she thought he might seize her, haul her up against the nearest tree, and... 

One arm extended, heavy hand closing around her upper arm. It was gentle, if firm, and nothing he hadn't done at least a dozen times before, yet it made her flinch as though struck. Automatically she moved to step back and her swollen ankle twinged, threatening to buckle. 

She swayed and his grip tightened, his eyes raking down the length of her. It was purely clinical, trying to locate the source of her flinch, yet she felt the weight of his scan like a physical touch. 

After the quick assessment, he took her by the other arm and lifted her straight off her feet. Her stomach flipped, and she was almost disappointed when instead of tossing her over his shoulder as she expected he simply tucked her into the crook of an arm, hand splayed beneath her knees to support her weight as though she were a housecat.  

He turned to begin the return trek through the undergrowth and she didn't fight him. She did, however, wonder what had just happened.

In the beginning she had been almost certain he intended to rape her. Why else spare her and keep her like he had? A man as large as he was surely had the testosterone levels of a freaking bull. She had been afraid then, as most women would have been. But the contrast between how she had felt about the idea then – of rape, and specifically him being the source – versus how her stomach had clenched at the split-second image of him pinning her to a tree and stepping between her knees just now was alarming, to say the ever-loving _least._ Had she actually thought he intended to drag her off like a caveman and have his way with her? Where in the holy heck had that come from? Why would she think...but that wasn't the real question here. The question was why had she not been repulsed? She knew what that warm flutter low in her belly meant, and it coincided with neither fear nor revulsion. 

Shaken, her hands tightened convulsively where they had automatically lowered to grip his collar, wincing at the sting as the cut in her palm pulled and began to bleed. His shoulder tightened against her side and she knew it was in response, knew he had smelled the blood and that the subtle quickening of his stride was a result of this. She was excruciatingly aware of him in ways she hadn't been just minutes ago, and in ways she was intensely uncomfortable with. The bunch and shift of muscle beneath his clothes as he moved. The way his other arm hung at his side, empty, unneeded in bearing her weight. But she had already known how strong he was; had known it since the beginning. She knew how he moved. So why was she so hyper-aware of it now? 

His eyes kept flicking to her as he walked – darting, snap-quick glances that she had a difficult time interpreting. Confusion? Uncertainty? Something else entirely? It was as though he half expected her to break her acquiescence by doing something underhanded and nasty like whack him over the head and start running again. As if she could have done either effectively. 

She saw the tiny frown line crease above his left eye she understood. Worry, yes. But not that kind. No, he was worried about her stupid self with her scraped palm and busted ankle and – probably – the biggest case of crazy-eyes he’d ever seen a person produce. He probably thought she’d hit her head, too, and was concerned for her health while he toted her back to her prison. Because that was all he ever did: patiently, resolutely return her as one might have a pet that kept venturing into the neighbor's yard. 

Housecat indeed.

A short, strangled noise emanated from somewhere south of her throat. Something both cackle and sob, and yet neither at once. Again she saw his eye flick to her and Whitney was almost positive his brows had risen with alarm behind the mask – which only made the collision of despairing hilarity that much worse.

*

Jason knew no words to describe the convoluted chaos that blazed through him when he came back and found her gone.  

When he'd left her he had been unquestionably rattled, raw and vulnerable as though his soul had been flayed open by old memories that still stung and bled when dredged up. He had rushed to get her situated, his hands unsteady at metal links that slid and writhed like the coils of a grass snake as the space in his chest seemed to close in with every breath. There might have been tears on her cheeks, but he couldn't remember. He hadn't been able to look directly at her, hadn't been able to meet her gaze again after everything. His head was full of screams and his lungs full of water that wasn't there. He had fled the instant he could, and in his haste and desperation had clearly slipped. Both chain and girl were gone now, with not even an indent in the striped mattress left behind. 

He had never told anyone what had happened. Any of it. No one had ever asked. No one had ever had a real chance to, if they would ever have cared, and he had not the voice to do so anyway. But he thought  _she_ had cared...otherwise why look at him like that, sad and solemn. Hadn't she? Hadn't that been why it had felt like seeing a glimmer of his own pain reflected back at him through the lens of her too-bright eyes?   

Metal winked; a shining bright spot amidst stacks of leather, paper, and laminate. He bent, enfolding the padlock within his palm and felt it snap shut, heard the click of the mechanism catching as it had not done before. Hours ago. Hours wherein he had thought...

Every organ he had seemed to sink with disappointment, not merely his stomach. The disappointment, in turn, annoyed him. 

What, had he thought she would just stay put? As if she hadn't proven time and again that if given a mere inch of opportunity she would slip from the captivity she made no pains to hide that she detested. She was not a dog, she was not trained to mind – had no _incentive_ to mind – and whatever her tears or spoken sympathies might have implied, she felt no affection for him. There was no reason for her to stay. Why should he have hoped for anything else? 

The annoyance flickered, a dying light beneath a gust of something he didn't recognize. Neither sadness nor grief, nor anger. He felt...hollow, empty. Had he hoped for that? Affection? Had he hoped that if he gave her an opening she might choose to stay with him? 

The frown creasing his brow deepened. Was this the result of choosing not to kill? Or was it more than that, more than simply not taking a life? Was it the life itself; or rather, _whose_ life?

Jason rarely thought about what his life would have been like had things happened differently. In his mind there was little point in dwelling on might-have-beens when there was no possibility of making them real. Recently however, he had found his thoughts straying that way more than once.

He didn't know enough about what life was like for normal children, let alone normal adults, so it was hard for him to feel as though his imaginings weren't pure fantasy. Yet in his mind his mother would still be alive, the house as it had been then: a clean kind of chaos where everything was in its proper, messy place. Things would be just as they were and they would be happy. Logically he knew this wouldn't have been possible, that with time would have come natural change regardless of how hard he clung to what was. But he didn't know what to conjure in its place. He had no way to imagine what else could have been instead, where change could have taken them. He had been too young to absorb enough of the world to do so. Too young and too sheltered.

Had the events of those years ago not happened...would he have met Whitney? He supposed whatever events had brought her here would still have occurred, but what if because he had never drowned and mother had never died she and her friends decided to go somewhere else instead. Would she ever have had a reason to come to this place were it still an operating camp? Would there have been any reason he might come across her if she had? What would mother have thought of her?

The question came out of nowhere, completely blind-sighting him. What  _would_  his mother think about this attachment he had clearly developed? Would she see Whitney's presence there as a good thing, or a threat?  _A threat,_  his mind supplied immediately, and when his response to this was not the firm decision to eliminate said threat he felt his breath seize in his chest. Felt, for a moment, as though he were drowning again. Never once had he thought to disobey his mother's wishes. Not when he'd been little, not after she was gone. Granted, she had never explicitly ordered him to do what he did: it was all self-mandated; a duty assigned out of assumption and inherited rage. Still, over the years his certainty that he was doing what she would have wanted only solidified, grew stronger, deeper, to the point where it felt like a given order. 

His thoughts circled back to those moments sitting by the lake spent reliving the events that had ended – and begun – everything. Even now with the buffer of hours he felt the rawness hovering close to the surface. It was a dull, panging ache not unlike the results of a kick to the chest. There was a part of him that wanted to blame Whitney for it – blame her questions, her curiosity about matters that didn't concern her – but he couldn't bring himself to commit. It wouldn't have mattered if she was there or not; prolonged closeness to the lake was like sticking the tip of a knife into a healing wound and wiggling it around. The only thing he could blame her for was her trespass and even the window for that had passed him by. Ultimately, the blame was his. As with a number of other things. 

Things like disobeying. Because he _had_ disobeyed, it was just that a guilty little part of him simply... _didn't care._  

He rose with a fluid surge of energy, not bothering to close the trapdoor when he emerged. He wasn't sure why he felt such a powerful need to have her back. After all, he wasn't going to do anything with her. All he was going to do was drag her back to the tunnel and tuck her securely into her corner. Yet the thought of anything else was something he could not stand. It wasn't entirely a comfortable feeling, but he didn't have time to analyze it now. 

When he came to the edge of what remained of the porch he paused. The first time Whitney had run she had run like a prey animal that had forgotten the safety which lay in silence: all base fear and need. This had not been like that. He wasn't sure she had run at all, for as he scanned the ground that lined the edge of the rotting wood he saw no impression to indicate where she had stepped down to launch into a sprint. He had seen her run: even hindered by the weight of chains, dehydrated and exhausted, she had been deer-quick and savvy enough to duck and weave in attempts to lose him. Given the time and space to move freely, she very well might have simply walked to the trees before darting away. He would find her, of that he had no doubt. But it might take time he couldn't afford to spend. 

He had to move quickly. The sun was already sinking low in the sky and the longer it took him to find and follow her trail the higher the risk she was lost or hurt, or killed. The big predators would be coming out soon to hunt, and she had nothing to protect herself. Nothing but him.

Crouching, Jason studied the ground, fingertips brushing dry, patchy grass and dirt. He found a shallow half-moon divot in the earth and traced the curve with his thumb, considering the size. The heel of a shoe: minimal tread, recently made. Lifting his chin, he scanned the ground around it until he found another – this one nearly a complete, the toe half of the same shoe. His head rose, his eyes following the line made by the two prints to a point at the tree line. 

 _There._ He rose and followed the invisible line, eyes trained low to spot any other signs left of her passing. She had been careful, he noted, for what trail he did find was faint and widely dispersed, often requiring more intent scouring than he usually needed to track a human. She must have made efforts to hide her tracks from him – a suspicion only verified when her trail abruptly turned in on itself to head back the way she had come, doubling back in the hope of confounding him. Clever. Not quite clever enough to work, but that was to more a credit to his skill than any fault of hers. Quite the contrary, if his worry hadn't been climbing by the second he would have admired the display of wit under stress. But just now it was causing _him_ stress – so much that he wasn't sure he wouldn't wring her foolish little neck when he found her. Of course he wouldn't. Doing so would defeat the entire point of this endeavor. Yet with every minute she spent out here alone in the growing dark the greater her chances of coming to some disaster.  

He had never experienced worry like this before. In small, fleeting doses occasionally yes, but never so much so thickly, building until it pooled so heavily in his throat that he was choking on it. A worry so distressing on its own that he had no room for any distress at its existence. He had no time to question, no time to analyze the reasons why it was so important to get her back. No time to wonder what would happen if he didn't, or why. In the moment, none of it mattered. Nothing mattered but the signs of her passing; partial imprints of footsteps, mussed leaves and grass, bent twigs, fine cottony threads caught on the peeling bark of a birch tree that he very nearly missed altogether.

He bent to examine them against the pale backdrop of his fingertips and sure enough found them to have belonged to her shirt. At once comforted that he was still on the right track and aggravated that he still had not caught up he kept moving, working down the length of a man-made path for several yards before turning a complete one hundred and eighty degrees to dive back into the green.

Perspiration was beginning to rise, dampening his palms and brow and between his shoulder blades in a way it never had outside of his drowning dreams and with it, the anxious dread that he didn't want to examine enough to name. So help him, when he found her he was going to make her regret putting him through this. 

A sound caught his ear, abrupt and out of place in the dusky quiet: a noisy rustling like something dragging through the undergrowth.

For a split second he was torn. If he followed the sound and it turned out to be nothing, he risked losing the trail, risked having to waste precious time and light picking it up again. But if that sound had been Whitney being hurt or worse and he delayed...

The muffled curse solved his dilemma. He abandoned the tracks he had just been poring over, surging headlong through the trees in the direction from which the sounds had come not bothering to lessen his natural quiet to warn of his approach. She deserved to be startled, the little idiot. Fear tangled with the worry and flooded his veins like fever, spiraling into a trembling, irrational anger. He charged into a tiny clearing, noting the clear marks of heavy footfalls in the spongy grass, the shattered remnants of a fallen tree that had rotted from the inside out and now lay in a scattered shambles where someone had fallen. His eyes rose as if pulled, piercing through the fringe of trees to settle on the narrow white face peering out at him.

The anger twisted into so swiftly into relief that he felt nearly winded. He headed straight for her, hardly having to order his feet to move, and when he finally reached her – when his hand closed around her arm – the relief crested in a way that felt nothing like the victory he might have expected. All halfhearted mental threats of neck wringing and punishment had gone from him, leaving only the barest fragments of the annoyance that had bitten so sharply before. None of it seemed to matter, because he had found her and she was safe. Injured, it seemed, for she staggered when she took a step back as though there were an arrow shaft in her leg. But safe now. With him. 

What an odd thing, to be the source of safety for someone. Him: the hunter, eradicator, the threat in the dark. It wasn’t something he ever could have expected.

She hadn't struggled when he seized her – something else he might have expected – made no effort to evade him. He held no illusions that she would not have fled had she felt the need, even on her obviously injured foot. She had let him fold her into the bend of his arm and carry her back without so much as a hint of protest, curling her fingers into his collar not to push at him, but simply to hold on. He might have thought her merely resigned, knowing her ploy for escape over, except that he couldn't quite shake the feeling that there something else there. Neither could he shake the way she had looked at him as he crossed the distance between them.

It hadn't been fear. He knew what her fear looked like, smelled like, sounded like, and it hadn't been that. But fear was the closest thing he could find to call it. She had stared at him like a deer – felled but not yet dead – like he was the wolf coming to tear out her throat. It hadn't been fear, but it hadn't _not_ been fear. Whatever it was, it was still there, a sort of wary alarm bright in the whites of her eyes every time he snuck a glance her way, and he could feel her soft shape trembling against his shoulder all the way back to the house. 

The warm copper scent of the blood at her palm strengthened when he lowered her to the little bed, the cut there pulling open anew when her grip tightened at his jacket. He couldn’t think why. Surely she knew he wouldn't drop her. He caught her hand in his before she could tuck it away somewhere, examining the shallow rend in the skin at the base of her palm. It was a surface cut, nothing serious. Releasing her hand, he reached down toward her right foot, grasping the ragged, dirty hem of her pant leg. Whitney flinched, but didn't move to extract herself or shove him away, and he folded the fabric carefully back to reveal the red and swollen ankle. He didn't know what to do for that. Clearly it needed tending, but this was not an injury he knew how to treat. The precise kind of injury he had hoped to avoid by freeing one of her hands when out walking. 

Pointedly he gestured to the ankle, hoping she could tell him what to do for it. When his eyes met hers, he found yet more of the fear that wasn't fear, and felt an uneasy chill rippled across his skin – the sudden sense of something shifting that he could neither identify nor follow.

Seemingly understanding what he wanted, Whitney cleared her throat. 

"Take—um, we'll have to take my shoe off..." she began and he immediately set to work on the laces, not noticing the awkward flutter of her hands or the stiffness in her spine as she leaned back against the wall.

Successfully sliding the shoe and grimy sock from her foot, he looked to her for the next instruction.

*

All things considered, Whitney thought she managed to pull off a decent impression of nonchalance. 

She had spent the entire trip back to the tunnel stewing in a pool of her own out of control emotions, wheeling wildly from panic to confusion and likely hitting every note along the spectrum in between. It had been reflexive, surely. Automatic. For a moment she had experienced a clean separation of brain and body, and while the former could tell the difference between a normal man and a serial killer, the latter – it seemed – could not. It had merely recognized the presence of a tall, strong male in the absolute prime of his possibly undying life and responded accordingly. She was determined to think no more of it, not to analyze or pick apart something that had meant nothing, because it had _been_ nothing. 

That had proved something of a challenge, though, since – spooked as she was – she now found herself physically reacting like a trauma patient to everything he did, to the point where it took digging her nails into the shoulders of his coat to keep from flinging herself away from him when all he'd done was adjusted to put her down. To the point where her wince as he pushed the leg of her jeans from her busted ankle had had nothing to do with pain but just incredible, overwhelming _awareness._  

They were back to their comfortable posts as captive and captor, back to the weird state of normalcy they had carved out of craziness, she in her corner and him looking over the scrapes she had acquired not unlike the way he examined the bruises beneath her cuffs every few days. But it wasn’t quite…normal. The biggest difference lay in the chain still coiled she had long since removed from around herself. She had thought it would be the first thing he did, secure the thing – and with it, her – to the wall and seal her lack of freedom in literal stone. But he hadn't: it still lay in a puddle of links on the mattress. She supposed it must be because he assumed she wouldn't be stupid enough to try anything with him crouched right there next to her. Which would be a correct assumption.

She'd had to guide him through removing her shoe and finding something upon which she could prop the foot to elevate it. Ice, she had guessed, was out of the question but she had asked all the same; and he'd left her for long minutes, chain still in place coiled over her shoulder because clearly she wasn’t going anywhere. The steep increase in her own helplessness was unpleasant to the point of agitation. 

He had returned some time later with an old cooler, which he set down on her crate next to the first aid kit and proceeded to kneel upon the ground at the base of her little mattress. 

With implicit gentleness the fingers of one large hand tucked beneath the slope of her calf, coaxing her to extend her leg at the knee to rest her heel against his thigh. She had made a feeble attempt to retract her foot from his grasp, whereupon he shot her a sharply quelling look that she interpreted to read: _you got yourself into this and you can deal with the consequences._ She meekly surrendered while he opened the cooler to extract a dripping washcloth. A cloth which he wrong liberally of cold water and laid carefully across her swollen ankle.

Any desire she might have had to make things difficult for him was entirely nonexistent now. It did no damage to her pride to admit that this was mostly because he was, in a way, helping her: following her instructions to the exact syllable to care for her angry ankle and even going so far as to clean the split in her palm with water and plain antibacterial soap which stung like the dickens. Quite frankly, the fact that he'd come after her at all when he really hadn't had to was enough to quash any attitude she might have given him for spoiling her attempt at escape. He could just as easily have left her to her fate. She wanted to be free? Fine, then. She could be free to fall in the dark and break her neck, free to stagger around in unfamiliar woods until she inevitably perished from exposure. All along he must have known true escape was impossible, that she would never make it far enough on her own to be a threat to him. Technically speaking, it had been as much a rescue as anything else. An extremely atypical one to be sure, but still. She was grateful. 

"Thank you," she said, decision made to be gracious, as was appropriate. His chin tilted slightly as he blinked at her, clearly not having expected what he evidently found an out of place comment. "For coming after me," she clarified, "and for this." 

He seemed to remain nonplussed, yet he managed to insert just enough judgement into his stare to make her squirm. Still his hands were careful as he removed the cloth from her ankle, returning it to the cooler to extract a second which he wrung out and laid across her foot. Such large hands, yet he was unspeakably gentle with her when she really didn't deserve it. Was he overcompensating? Afraid to hurt her by accident because he was so much bigger than she? Or was he simply a gentle soul beneath all the layers of pain and anger? He skimmed his fingertips over the bones in her foot, feeling for breaks, or so she suspected. There were none, but something inside her still softened at his taking the time to look. He then followed the curve of her heel, bypassing the swelling to trace the bones in her shin, up toward the knee. It was then that she recollected the spill she had taken on their walk earlier, that he had watched her shake out this very same knee and deem it fine. Observant of him. But then, she wasn't exactly surprised. 

Apparently satisfied, he gestured for her hands and began his routine checking of her wrists. Releasing the cuffs and unwinding the ace bandaging to examine the skin beneath, though he did not, she noted, replace either manacle between checking. For the first time in weeks she was completely unbound, which felt lovely...and strangely vulnerable. The only reason he didn't was because she couldn't go anywhere.

"I'm not going to run again," she blurted, not realizing she had come to the decision until the statement burst free.

He sent her another look, this one decidedly disbelieving. Yet it wasn't the exaggeratedly snide, raised-eyebrow-with-a-side-of-smirk kind of skepticism. It was flat, simple. It wasn't necessarily intended to be read, wasn't given as a means of communicating the sentiment. He simply didn't believe her and she could tell.

"Yeah, I wouldn't trust me either," she remarked with a pointed glance to evidence of her foolishness resting in his lap. "But I won't. There's obviously no point. I'll never get far enough away that you won't find me, and even if I did chances are I'd just get myself maimed." 

Something wry in his gaze told her that he didn't disagree with that statement and she nearly laughed. Biting the inside of her cheek to curb the impulse she ducked her chin and hid behind the fall of her hair, averting her eyes down to the neat bandage wrapped about her palm and covering the cut there. She could clearly see the difference between the skin that had met the touch of soap and the skin that had not. There were as clear line just at the top edge of the bandaging where clean gave way to the rest of her grimy hand. Well...now was as good a time as any. Plus, being hobbled as she was, he might be that much more likely to agree.

"I know now really isn't a good time to ask for a favor," she began uncertainly. She didn't look at him – not out of any attempt to come across as harmless or submissive, but simply because she was anxious and didn't know what else to do.

He made a small sound. A short huff of an exhale that might as well have served as an exasperated: _what?_

She took a breath.

"Um, next time we're at the bathrooms, could I take a shower? I'm—well, I've been ok so far, there's soap at the sinks, but I feel like my skin's going to rot off if I don't shower. And I need to wash my clothes or I'm going to get...get sick." 

He sat back to study her, and she felt the muscle beneath her foot heel tighten as he did – which had the strange effect of increasing the nervousness that really had no place here. Why was she nervous, exactly? The worst he could do was deny her, and while sure at some point that would cause problems, for the moment it wouldn't hurt her. Yet her pulse had spiked, fluttering wildly in her throat like a trapped insect with every ticking second he spent regarding her in motionless silence. Weighing her request.  

Again the burden of her own helplessness pressed in on her, restlessness piling atop the nerves until she felt herself actually twitching in attempts to alleviate it – wringing the hem of her shirt between her fingers at the spot where a new tear had formed.

She had been helpless since the beginning; she knew that. But the injury made what had been a situation she could grudgingly accept into something borderline unbearable. It wasn't that she couldn't walk on her own, because she could. It wasn't because she couldn't run, because that was pointless anyway. It was because she had taken advantage of a mistake made in a state of emotional weakness. Forced him to come after her to save her ridiculous hide from potentially much worse than she had gotten – regardless of whether he had done it for this or for other reasons – proving herself to be as untrustworthy as she had been at the start. He had no reason to allow her this, no reason to do anything for her. His tending to her stupid foot was more than she deserved and it was her own stupid fault. That, she realized, was the source of her nerves: the fear that she had irrevocably ruined the tentative equilibrium they had struggled to find.

He reached for her, long fingers surprisingly dexterous as he brushed the messy curtain of hair back from her face. They grazed her cheek as he did and she felt the callus lining his fingertips, rough and rasping against her skin. It seemed an oddly affectionate gesture, especially considering the circumstances. Or perhaps it was merely curiosity, seeking an answer to a question. He either needed or wanted to see her face and therefore he moved the obstacle in the way, yet the softness of it seemed to belie an intent that reached beyond mere curiosity. 

He didn't touch her often – not since she had barked at him not to all those days ago. To physically move her, yes, or to treat her growing collection of scrapes and handle the manacles, but never without any obvious purpose. Never just...because. Automatically she lifted her gaze to his, sliding across the stoic shield of fiberglass to the eyes beneath. Even set so deeply in shadow as they were underground she could still make out the color of them, the lack of crease to indicate anything outside of mild scrutiny.

Whitney rarely felt physically small. She had been taller than average from an early age and her school days had been rife with teasing because of it, not to mention how difficult it was to consider dating when not even a single prospect came up past the point of her chin. It was less prevalent in adulthood, but it was still a rare thing to come across a man who truly made her forget her own height. Even Mike, who had managed to beat her by a full three inches, had merely felt suited rather than truly larger. Jason, by contrast, made her feel downright delicate. Just having his hand next to her cheek, broad and strong, was enough to render her slender and willowy and all manner of other flowery descriptors that had no place in real language. 

Before she had time to register how uncomfortable this should probably make her, he had lowered the hand, nodding, and she found herself somewhat winded by her relief.  

"Thank you," she half-sighed, to which he merely used that same hand to point down at her ankle which, she gathered, was a clarifying concern. Would she be able to maneuver on her own enough to do so with her injury? She expected so, after all she had proven relatively capable of limping around, and there were plenty of surfaces to utilize as crutches in the bathroom. "I can manage," she assured him, "it's just..."

She hesitated then, nervously scraping her lip between her teeth. Lifting the chain and the cuffs attached she jangled them with a quiet rattle.

"I can't with these on. Which is why it’s not a good time to ask."

Jason snorted, and when she looked she saw the crease of humor at the outer corners of his eyes. Unexpectedly she experienced a swift impulse to smack him as she might have smacked Clay for doing something bratty.

"Ok," she snapped, "I know I'm useless and can't run, you don't need to rub it in." He made the low, rasping exhalation that she knew to be a laugh, and pressed her lips together. 

Well, she thought, at least he wasn't too pissed to laugh at her. That was absolutely a good thing.

The next thing she knew Jason was carefully moving her foot from his leg so he could stand and he was extending a hand to her, clearly with the intent to help her up. 

"Oh," she blinked, taken aback, "I didn't mean right now, I can wait..."

He gave a small shrug as if to ask _why not now_ , and she supposed he had a point. In theory, she _should_ probably wait until her ankle had healed up a bit, but the prospect of being clean – really, truly clean – was far too great a temptation to bring it up.

Bracing herself back against the wall, she mused: "any chance there are some extra clothes lying around? Mine are...nasty."

His hand dropped slightly, retracting the offer of help up, and at first she assumed this to be a flat _no_ until she realized he was considering the question. Half a second later he had extended his hand again, palm out toward her this time telling her to wait. Then he turned and bustled out into the tunnel again. About half an hour later he reemerged, a small bundle of fabric draped over one arm and looking pleased with himself. 

She folded the clothes against her chest with one arm and gripped his offered hand to hoist herself onto her good leg. He helped her hobble up the shallow incline to the trapdoor, cupping one of her elbows as she clung to his other arm. As always he went through first, heaving himself up with near effortless ease before dropping to a knee and reaching down for her, hands bracketing her waist to lift her out. Half by instinct and half by routine she braced her empty hand against his shoulder, startled anew at the lack of the clanking metal she had grown so accustomed to and trying not to notice the way the outer seam of his trousers strained over the length of his thigh, the muscle bunched and powerful. 

Rather than have her hobble, Jason merely adjusted his grip around her, once again tucking her against the crook of his arm to keep her off her injury. He carried her the entire way – from the house and across the campground to the bathrooms – going so far as to ascend the concrete step to bring her inside, though it required him to duck an inch or so to keep from smacking his head against the door frame.

He put her down just inside the door, close enough to the line of sinks that she could reach out and grip the edge of the counter for support. He lingered there for a moment, looking more ungainly and awkward in the bright, cramped little building than he ever had before, giving Whitney the impression that he was trying to determine what, if anything, he should do now. Did she need more help? Should he just leave?

“I think I’m ok from here,” she assured him. When he continued to linger, she added, “I’ll yell if I need help. Ok?”

This appeared satisfactory, for Jason turned to go. He paused again in the midst of ducking his head, reaching up to pluck a clean towel from the shelves and handing it to her. 

He hadn’t needed to – she would have been able to grab one herself – but still the gesture had been intended as helpful and she treated it as such, smiling softly as she took the proffered towel.

“Thank you.”

With a tiny little half-shrug he ducked outside, no doubt to station himself against the outer wall.

It was an effort to cross the narrow bathroom, and she was grateful that the sinks reached the entire way across the space. She managed to hobble to the opposite side where the building opened up at the end of the toilet stalls into the showers where a wide, plywood cabinet stood. Though she had begun to formulate a few wild dreams that there might be a little forgotten bag of toiletries beyond the cabinet doors, it had been far outside of her reach with her tether and so had not been able to look. When she pulled it open, she discovered her hopes had not been in vain. 

While the cabinet was mostly empty, there was a round red basket inside piled with a full-size bottle of shampoo and one of conditioner, two different kinds of body wash, lotion, toothpaste and several extra brushes. There was a wide-toothed comb and a round bristle brush, bobby pins, powerful sunscreen, and – tucked behind all that – a _hair dryer_. It looked as though someone had brought enough supplies to last them several weeks and had either left them by accident or with the intent of returning to use them up.

Whoever had left the toiletries behind Whitney was grateful to them, though she did try not to think too hard about the likely long dead girl as she picked up the basket and toted it into the showers. Unlike the communal ones in her high school gym, the showers here were separated into individual stalls. Each had been hung with an opaque plastic curtain – though one of these was missing, the plastic little more than shreds left clinging to the rings as though it had been torn away – and each contained a little shelf on which to set soap and the like. 

Getting out of her dirty clothes was easy enough until she came to her pants. Being unable to put weight on one foot made shimmying out of them an exercise in balance and in leaning far forward without tipping forward and getting a face full of cement. Finally, she was able to extract herself enough to step out from the puddle of grimy denim and turn on the water.

For a split second after she twisted the knob she was convinced nothing was going to happen. But after a few seconds spent with bated breath there was a faint rattle of old pipes and jets of water streamed down from the shower head.

She was downright giddy when she stepped inside the cramped little space, as steam curled about her limbs and heat soaked through her skin. It felt so good that the utter ecstasy of it nearly hurt. It didn’t matter that the water pressure was weak or that she had to either prop herself against the wall with a hand or a shoulder to keep the weight off her angry foot. For generous minutes she simply stood there, turning back and forth under the hot water and basking in the heat and prospect of being clean before she even thought about picking up the soap. When she did, however, it was to work up a thick layer of suds and scrub them into her skin and hair until she tingled all over.

The body wash she selected was lovely and lemony without being overpowering, and with a faint touch of mint that – whether it did or not – seemed to flush all the dirt and oil and grime from days and nightmares from her pores. By the time she was done, her skin was a burnished lobster pink and her hair hung in lank, damp coils about her neck: clean, and possibly the happiest she had been for a long time. 

The clothes Jason had found for her were ill fitted. The leggings were all right, though they bunched a bit around the knees. The shirt, however, was a monster of plaid flannel worn so thin that its very molecular structure seemed to have changed until it was an altogether different kind of fabric. The hem hung to mid-thigh and the sleeves had to be rolled back twice to free her hands. Still, it was soft, comfortable, and would breathe, so it didn’t occur to her to be disappointed. She donned them, dragged a comb through her hair, and limped outside where Jason waited for her.

He was standing with his back against the wall just outside the door rather than out away from it like he usually did. For all the vigilance this suggested, he held his hands loose at his sides, his face tilted up to the leaf-dappled stretch of sky above him where a pair of little brown and cream birds flitted and cheeped.

It was an odd, still moment: one wherein which she didn’t see a killer, or a captor. Just for a moment she saw nothing but a man. A large man in a mask who carried a big fucking knife at his side, true. But the kind of man with the patience to tote her around, to wait for her – who gave her the impression that he wouldn't have complained even if he'd had a voice with which to do so, though she had no evidence to substantiate that. A man with the capacity to be perfectly content spending his waiting time watching birds. For the first time since that horrible beginning, she saw someone neither dangerous nor threatening. Just someone who knew his place in the world and was completely comfortable there. It was so completely opposite of the person she remembered cowering from in the beginning that in the moment she spent staring she felt as though she had been picked up and enthusiastically shaken as a dog might a soft toy: her brain transposed into a little ball rattling around in her skull.

All people were complex. This just proved it to an extreme.

As she emerged he angled his head to look at her and his eyes narrowed ever so slightly, creasing at the inner corners. A frown.

She looked down at herself, holding her dirty clothes out and away from her body. "What?" 

He pushed away from the wall to approach her. Pinching the sleeve of the shirt between two fingers he pulled it straight out from her arm to indicate the sheer volume of extra fabric there was, and she shrugged. 

"Better too big than too small." 

His eyes flicked up from the sleeve to find hers, regarding for a moment before lowering them again to the shirt, whereupon they took on an almost disapproving cast. Funny, she would have thought he would prefer she be in looser clothes.

He reached again, plucking this time at the excess fabric that gathered around her middle, and all of a sudden she was very much aware of how close he stood, the heat of his hand through the flannel worn thin by years of wear and washing. Aware of the fact that she wore no bra. The one she'd had had been far too grimy and stained to put back on. He either hadn't known to bring one, or there was simply none to bring – quite possible considering it was likely a man's shirt she wore – and until she found a way to wash her clothes more thoroughly than beating at them with a rock and body soap, she would have to go commando. A concept that hadn't bothered her much when dressing.

It bothered her now.

Releasing a soft, toneless huff Jason let the fabric slip from between his fingers and Whitney found she regained the power to breathe again.

*

She was different. Jason couldn't pinpoint what it was that made her seem so aside from the lack of dirt, but she did.  

The clothes were far too big for her; the shirt alone nearly swallowed her. He rarely kept clothes, as they were almost never big enough to fit him. These had been the only things he could find amidst the detritus from the last camp he had deconstructed and simply hadn't yet had the time to be rid of. Yet they seemed to make her happy, for all that the shape of her was all but disappeared beneath the excess fabric. He shot another subtly examining look at her from across the cavern where he stood taking stock of his remaining supply of trap-making materials. 

She was sitting comfortably on her mattress with her injured foot propped up the crate and cushioned with a folded blanket. She had rolled the gigantic plaid sleeves up nearly to her shoulders and was rubbing something that smelled spicy and floral from a little yellow bottle over her arms, humming to herself as she did.  

Quite happy, then. Fascinating what water, soap, and new clothes had the power to do.

He glanced down at himself: at the thin, ragged shirt, stained by earth and sweat, the pants so faded that they no longer so much as resembled the color they had once been. At the coat with shredded sleeves and fraying hem. He had never cared much, or perhaps because clothing that fit him so rarely happened his way he had simply convinced himself he didn't. He remembered very clearly how mother had touted the virtues of cleanliness, and that however much he had struggled or complained – if only in his own mind – he remembered feeling better after every bath, with every shirt and sweater worn fresh out of the dryer. He did wash, every once in a while if he got overly grimy or bloody. If he turned slightly to the right he would see the lump of orange-brown soap he used sitting on its dish waiting to be carried to a fast-moving part of the stream. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Whitney set the bottle aside and lean back against the wall, the movements soundless without the chain to frame each one with a rattle. He hadn't cuffed her again upon bringing her back, having not seen the need. The chains, after all, were more of a product of convenience than necessity, at least when he was near. Though he wasn't yet sure he believed her claim that she wouldn't try to run away again, he had to agree that for the moment she wasn't going anywhere. 

It was interesting: he'd thought her such a fragile thing at first, even when she'd fled and fought him, when she kicked and cursed and spat insults. But she wasn’t. She was hardy and determined, if perhaps a bit hardheaded. In truth, he thought he rather admired her, if that’s what the strange sense of kinship he felt was. Each of them had had the choice stolen from their hands, and each of them were making due, weren’t they?

"Are you ok?"

His response was a visceral jerk, as though her voice had reached out like a hand and gripped him by the shoulder. He blinked; suddenly realizing that he had been staring, and felt oddly as though he had been caught doing something bad. Yet she was merely peering at him from over the folds of the blanket she'd wrapped around herself, an old, faded quilt he had found tucked away in a box upstairs. 

"You were just sort of...standing there," she explained, though she needn't have, a hint of concern about the furrow in her brow.

He felt an odd pressure in his chest, an uncomfortable wrenching twist of emotion as he looked at her. He knew so little about her. Oh, he knew what face she made when she was displeased, how she would lift her chin and narrow her eyes ever so slightly when she was being stubborn. He knew that she favored her right hand and her left foot, that she preferred the shade to direct sunlight. He knew she loved books and liked the rats and was thereby likely kind-natured. But he did not know where she came from, where she lived, whether she still had a mother of her own – wherever home was – waiting for her to come home. It wouldn't have affected any choices he made, but that he couldn't so much as ask made him frustrated with his limited means of communication more than anything else ever had. It felt wrong somehow, to demand so much and know so little.

"...Jason?"

Her frown had deepened slightly, her fingers sliding across the open book to grip the front cover as though to close it. As though she meant to get up and walk across the space to go to him. To comfort him. His brain shied from the idea before it could fully form, shoving it away on instinct. 

He nodded once, pointedly, and the frown line eased. He turned back to his box of twine and wire and forced himself to focus on his task. The thinner gauge wire was running low; he was going to have to steal more from one or several of his neighbors tomorrow. He exhaled heavily, not enjoying the prospect of what would surely be a time-consuming hunt. The farmer's barn was the obvious first choice but there was no guarantee of finding the precise thing he was looking for in that mess. This wasn't to say Jason's own living and storing spaces were the picture of neatness, but they were his messes – he knew where everything was amidst what looked to be disorder. Someone else's messes were just plain different. By the time he had determined what he needed to scrounge up, Whitney was curled up - foot still propped on the crate – buried under the quilt. Presuming she must be asleep, he crept quietly out through the tunnel and up into the house to wait out the night.

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the delay - it's been a very busy month. Other than that, all I'll say is shit's getting real. 
> 
> Until next time!


	9. Madness

****

* * *

 

 

**Day 22**

There was nothing quite like being in the woods; in a place where man might have walked, but had not marked in any way traceable to the eye. Nothing made her feel quite so at one with the world. Or quite so removed from it. It was simultaneously peaceful and melancholic; the kind of place where it would be easy to lose oneself - to let troubles and fears and worries slip away like so much grime.

Letting the book fall closed upon her lap, Whitney leaned against the trunk of the tree at her back, tipping her chin up to peer through the spaces between the limbs bursting with green. The bits of sky beyond were the perfect true blue that only came at the height of summer, unbroken by cloud. Which made for a day that had begun hot and only got hotter. She had been sweating already by the time Jason had brought her to the little glade, though she had been doing none of the work. 

He had been kind enough to bring her outside for a few hours every day, settling her under a tree by the lake or at a shady spot in the less dense part of the woods to read while he went off to do whatever else he did besides resetting traps. Being outside without the freedom of movement, however, was just a different sort of a cage. The restlessness had been compounding with each day until she thought she might rattle out of her own skin. Still, light was pouring in from the end of that tunnel. 

Due to what was likely a combination of good luck and decent genes Whitney had always seemed to heal relatively quickly. After four days of rest her ankle was still on the tender side, but it could hold her weight to stand and take a few steps so long as she did so conscientiously - and not a moment too soon. 

For the second time since waking that morning, she lifted her right leg from where it stretched out upon the grass and carefully rotated the ankle joint, flexing her bare toes. Her shoes were back in the tunnel where they had been sitting by her bed, patiently waiting for the moment when she could wear them again. Being barefoot was pleasant enough, it being the height of summer and sweltering, but it did limit where she could go. Something which wasn't an issue when she was being carried around everywhere. Which was the other reason she wanted to get back to walking as soon as possible: her absolute hatred of feeling like an invalid. 

She stretched again, pulling her toes straight back toward her torso. There was still a subtle pull of tension along the inner line of the Achilles, but no pain aside from that of unused muscles. One more day of rest would likely be all she needed. Thank god.

Sighing, she let her eyes drift closed. She didn't relish the idea of taking a nap out here, mostly because this was the middle of a wood and not a particularly amazing backyard. While it was true that Jason obviously felt it safe to leave her there - safe in ways that had nothing to do with the risk of her running off - she still thought it a good idea to stay awake and aware, if not alert. Still, her head and eyelids were getting heavy, a combination of the heat and her waning blood sugar. A nap sounded like a delightful idea, if an inadvisable one. 

As if summoned by the hollow, not-quite-grumble of her stomach, Jason emerged from the brush with a faint rustling, a cloth-wrapped bundle in one hand that hadn't been there the hour or so ago when he'd left her.  

Her belly squeezed slightly, which she blamed on the hunger even as she knew the one had nothing to do with the other. For if it did, this would have been the first and only time. She pointedly ignored it, shoving denial between it and her with all the force of a warrior's shield and not caring if it was overly dramatic to do so.

It was just...it was nothing. It _was._

"Hey," she greeted casually, biting down the reflex to ask the kind of simple follow-up questions she had been shaped to ask: such as _how did it go_ , or _how was everything_. She hadn't realized what effective tension relief such near-meaningless chunks of conversation could be until she no longer had them to fall back on. Which, she guessed, would have been an interesting social experiment to undertake if the subject hadn't been herself. 

It had become something of a habit to give him a quick once-over whenever he came back from even normal daily excursions. She kept insisting to herself that she didn't want to know, yet she still scanned his clothes for new stains, his hands for flecks of blood, as though she couldn't help it.

There was something about death that was as alluring as it was off-putting: possibly because when someone came close enough to death to look it in the eye they were able to feel and appreciate their own life in a way they simply couldn’t otherwise. Which was weird, because Whitney often felt like she had spent her last few years in a near constant proximity to death. Yet she really hadn't. Her life had been calm and safe, dangerous only in that there would always be risk in simply being alive. Mankind, it seemed, had lost something in the modern era with technology and the things which came alongside it increasing lifespans and quality of life and making the prospect of dying seem like a faraway maybe thing that mainly happened to other people - thereby making life seem almost...trivial as a result.

Or, equally possible, she was just morbid and fascinated in spite of also being squicked out by the idea of murder. She was fairly sure no one pursued and subsequently stuck with a career in healthcare without being a tiny bit morbid.

She hadn't seen any signs of killing on him since the infamous time of the headless dead body he'd dragged down into the tunnels. But that didn't mean he hadn't done it. And that made the other thing - the non-thing that she was absolutely not thinking about - all the more uncomfortable. Especially when her scan for blood lingered a little too long on the way the worn shirt draped the swell of his chest and she caught herself lamenting that no matter how hot it grew he never so much as removed his coat.

_Stop it._

His hand was warm to the touch when he bent to help her up. She didn’t know what she had once expected; stone, perhaps, or something just as cool and unforgiving. But as it had been then, his skin was only skin. Warm, with callus lining the palms and the tips of the fingers. A shade or so darker than it must normally have been due to the protective layer of dirt. His fingers closed around hers and she felt a soft, shivery unease at the base of her spine as she clambered to her feet – one which lessened only after he’d released her, proffering instead the lumpy bundle wrapped in blue gingham.

Not bothering to ask what it was, she balanced it on the flat surface of her book. Undoing the simple overhand knot that held the corners together and unfolded an end, revealing three fresh, ripe peaches and a whole loaf of bread still warm and fragrant as if it had just come from an oven. 

Instantly she was wide awake, mouth pooling with anticipatory saliva. "Ohmygod," she blurted, lifting the entire bundle and burying her nose in the heavenly yeast-heavy smell of bread.

It occurred to her as she breathed in that he must have stolen the bread, at the very least, from someone's home, and that it was entirely possible he'd been seen doing so. A split second later it she decided that anyone close enough to fall victim to this precise theft likely knew to carry on as though nothing had happened, easing the flicker of worry that had just been starting to kindle.

“Thank you,” she breathed on her exhale. He just shrugged; a nonchalant gesture that did not hide the soft gleam of his eyes behind the fiberglass shield. Pleased by the find, and perhaps by her enthusiasm. 

He did seem to find a sort of strange satisfaction in her happiness. She wasn't sure what to make of that. It was easy to accept the possibility of loneliness built-up over decades, but the way he looked after her didn't feel like a child's attempts to mimic nurturing, maturity stunted by upheaval. He wasn't very childlike at all, except perhaps in those little moments of vulnerability. And yet hopelessness, insecurity, fear, mistrust...those weren't inherently childish qualities, it was simply that most boys - most men - didn't allow those things to show so freely and clearly. Or without shame. They weren't raised to do so; nor were they raised to be nurturing or to be caretakers. 

In that moment it occurred to Whitney that maybe the reason it was rankling her so much to be immobile was partly because she was so accustomed to being the one doing the caring. Since her mom's diagnosis she had been the one keeping track of appointments, ensuring meals and medications were taken care of, and that had been for years now. Of course she liked to be able to walk around on her own, but she hadn't considered how much she had come to rely on being in control of her situation, or in just how many ways. 

It was also the moment where she grasped something incredibly important. That Jason, having been alone since around the age of twelve, had had no outside influence in terms of how he grew up. _None._  No adults - parental or otherwise - dictating how he should act or think or feel, what things boys did or did not do. No other children to shove those things back in his face until he had no will other than to conform. No social standards molding and pressing him into a shape that might not truly fit. No social standards at all. He was purely himself in ways Clay or Mike or Richie had never had the chance to be, in ways _she_ had never been perhaps until now; trapped in the middle of nowhere, in a place she had never wanted to be in the first place. 

She had been raised to regard men with caution that wasn't fair and wasn't right, but _was_ regardless, for reasons beyond her - or even their - control. Yet Jason...Jason might be the only man alive that had been in no way influenced by the things she had been conditioned to be wary of. 

Holy crap. _That_ was something to unpack later.

When he made the open, one-armed reaching gesture she knew preceded being picked up, she stepped into it, allowing him to sweep her into the crook of his arm. It had become comfortable over the past four days. Well, as comfortable as something could when she itched with the dislike of feeling helpless and incapable. Still, it was almost second nature now to lean into the sturdy breadth of his shoulder, the quilted coat sleeve, no longer feeling she must hold on or else risk being dropped. There was no risk of that. The only problem was that the comfort of it had downsides. When she wasn't concentrating on clinging, she had the energy and brain power to focus on the fact that he could do this - just carry her around in one arm like it was no big deal when it really, really was. 

She busied herself with eating, stuffing a hunk of bread in her mouth and making a whiny noise of pure delight; about seventy-percent sure she felt his chest dip with a silent laugh as he began walking. She ignored it. Which was a task considering she was literally nestled against said chest. He was just so goddamn _big_.

_Oh my god, Whitney, knock it off._

When they reached the campground - stitched through with its flat, narrow dirt paths - she made a muted sound around her mouthful of food and tapped at his back. 

"Put me down?" she requested and he did so, lowering her carefully until her feet met silty dry earth. "I'll walk the rest of the way."

Jason's masked face tilted down to examine her feet. She stood steadily, but she could see the hint of inquiry when his eyes lifted back to hers.  

_Are you sure?_

She nodded. "The muscle needs to be strengthened up again, and the best way to do that is with small chunks of movement between rest breaks." 

Jason's head tilted to left in the angle she recognized as curiosity. She wasn't sure exactly what the source was, but she thought it might be her apparent knowledge of what to do for the injury. If this seemed strange to her it was only because she had assumed having lived out here on his own for so long he must have been injured once or twice, and therefore must have been able to figure out how to handle it. Or maybe he hadn't been. Maybe he was just so freaking sturdy that he never got hurt. 

Odd or not, that wouldn't actually have surprised her. 

Accepting this, he stepped aside, pointing to the path in indication that she should go first. It made sense; he wanted to keep an eye on her in case she tripped or took a bad step. The flat logic of it didn't make her feel like any less silly.

She started off down the path, keeping her steps small and cautious until she regained the rhythm. It was shockingly easy how fast something ingrained into physical memory could begin to feel strange. Walking after consecutive days of having not done so felt clumsy and ungainly at first, half of which was simply due to the fact that half her muscles had been recovering from trauma. She refrained from eating as she walked, which was a special kind of torture with the sunny sweet smell of the peaches pressing tauntingly at her nose. But as badly as she wanted one, she really didn't want to divert her focus and end up turning the other ankle. 

While she couldn't see him, she could hear Jason matching her pace - quiet, padding footsteps, slow and unhurried. It felt strange not to be the one trailing in his wake, strange to have him behind her. 

Something fluttered behind her breastbone, right at the bottom where it split into the lowermost ribs as though a tiny creature had gone scuttling into the space there. Abruptly, for no reason at all, Whitney experienced an almost hysterical urge to run - to dart off the path and conceal herself somewhere in the trees. It was a starkly prey-animal response, not unlike the moment when he'd caught her on that first mad-dash escape when she had felt the physical power of him against her and known that he could break her like a matchstick. The sharp, keen knowledge that there was a hunter at her back. 

She dragged in a breath, forcing the impulse down. She was in no danger; she knew that - she  _believed_  that. The automatic response to a threat as perceived by instinct was not really the issue here. She wasn’t afraid he was going to hurt her.

She wasn’t _afraid_ at all.

Sweat beaded at the nape of her neck, half the summer heat and half nerves. Her pulse was rising with every second, every step, her face either flushed or draining of its color she wasn’t sure which. Her hands were trembling, and she adjusted her grip on the bundle, her fingernails biting into the tender skin of one of the peaches until it bled, juice dripping down the side of her hand.

She knew what this was. No one who had ever been a pre-teen with a crush – stiff and flushing and folded in on oneself at the first fleeting grasp of attraction – could _not_ know.

A hand closed about her upper arm, stopping her next step before she took it and sending her heart leaping straight into her throat. Bringing with it the smell of pine and leather, and salt. Her head snapped up, and if he noticed the flare of panic in her expression, he made no indication of it. He released her almost immediately, indicating she should alter her trajectory slightly and away from the detritus that spilled across the path: a glittering confetti of splintered wood and glass from a cabin’s char-blackened skeleton. She swallowed thickly, trying to ignore the fact that her nose and mouth were full of the scent of him and failing spectacularly. Her nod was jerky and stiff, every muscle in her back and shoulders having coiled tight as springs, but she corrected as advised - stepping out onto the brittle, sun-browned grass to give the hazard a wide berth. 

Guilt stung, followed swiftly by disgust.

What was _wrong_ with her? She was not a thirteen-year-old girl brand new to the alarming, too-adult world of desire and terrified of it. But holy shit did she feel like it, and that was all kinds of wrong. This was the same man that had killed Mike - that would have killed her just as quickly, just as easily, and without a care. Like it was nothing. He had killed who knew how many people. Possibly hundreds. And yet here she was, freaking out over nearness and contact just like her pre-teen counterpart, a girl she hadn’t been in years.

He was just...she didn't know what to call it. Every word she could think of seemed ridiculous and made the last lingering immature parts of herself - the parts that still felt secretive and shameful whenever indulging in the odd romance novel – want to snicker, embarrassed. Earthy. Primal. _Bestial._

Perhaps it was that he never spoke, the effortless silence in contrast to his mass, or the way he moved. Perhaps it was simply the size of him. 

Jesus Christ, this was not ok.

It didn’t take very long for her ankle to start complaining about the sudden onslaught of work she had demanded it do. She deliberately said nothing. If she complained he’d just pick her up again, and she very much did not want him touching her right now. She managed to make it all the way to the rundown little house without Jason noticing anything was wrong – or else simply trusting that whatever signs of pain she showed were to be expected and therefore nothing to be concerned with.

Sinking to the mattress in her corner was a definite relief or several kinds. Letting out a breath it felt she’d been holding for a solid twenty minutes she sagged against the rock wall, eyes drifting closed, bundle of bread and fruit cradled in her lap.

The gentle clank of chain interrupted her momentary calm. She blinked, craning her head to look and found Jason holding the manacles which had hung there from their ring, unused for the past four days.

Of course. She was walking again, mobile. And for all that she had promised not to, how could she truly expect him to believe her when she said she wouldn’t try to run away again?

She couldn’t.

To his credit, and quite possibly the sole reason she experienced not even the barest traces of resentment, he appeared to be hesitating, holding the cuffs in his great hands as though weighing them, as though he didn’t really want to use them at all.

“It’s ok.” He looked up at her, expression likely matching the blank surface of the mask for once, and she smiled. It was tight at her mouth, a mask of her own, but she held it, determined.

Sliding her hands free she extended them, palms up, expectant and offering.

“I haven’t exactly been a model prisoner. I understand.”

And she did, truly. But she wouldn’t pretend that it didn’t seem like an odd sort of backwards step to have the metal close about her wrists again. There were too many other things she was pretending not to be.

It was not an easy night.

She picked at the chili he’d brought for dinner, the beef and bean-ridden slop completely unappetizing. Choosing instead to stuff herself on peaches, she relished in the soft give of the fruit, the perfect ripeness measured in pinkish flesh and the precise flavor only the best peaches had. She ate two of them, tucking the third into a cool corner in the hopes of holding off rot at least overnight. It was in the midst of this that she discovered the feather tucked in the folds of the cloth: a beautiful creamy beige color, striped brown and quite large, likely having come from an owl. Another pretty thing to add to the growing collection atop her crate. Seeing it had inexplicably made her feel weird and weepy, and she’d set it aside out of sight to keep the compulsion at bay.

Getting to sleep was a tussle with blankets and a sore back, and several rather violent attempts to get comfortable when her body simply didn’t want to do so. And when she did finally drift off, it wasn’t for long.

In the middle of the night - somewhere around three or four in the morning, if she were to guess – she woke, abruptly and randomly as wide awake as though she had been shaken. She turned over, wondering if she’s had too much to drink before bed and had to pee, and quite grumpy about it. But, no, that wasn’t right. Having to pee never made her feel bloated…

Understanding blooming in the forefront of her brain.

Without a real calendar and the four-week countdown of her birth control packet she had lost track of time. Time, that was, within a very specific parameter; one she had greeted once a month every year since she’d been twelve. And without said birth control to help regulate it, the symptoms that had shown like clockwork for years had been knocked completely off-kilter to the point where she hadn’t even recognized them.

Disinterest in heavy food, but a craving for sugar. Muscle aches, particularly in mid-back. Bloating. Irritability. The not-quite ache in her lower belly as though her uterus was inflamed – because it basically was.

Well shit, _no wonder_ she felt crazy, she was in a state of hormonal rage.

She sat up slowly, cautiously, taking stock. The bleeding hadn’t started yet, that much she could tell. She had no idea what it was that made her able to sense in advance; some ethereal magic rooted in practical means. Whatever the cause, she knew she had only minutes at most until the uncontrollable, viscous rush.

She cast about her little space, searching for something she could use that wasn’t either dirty or impractical – and found nothing.

_Fucking hell…_

Not knowing what else to do, chest tight and hot with yet another threat of just as pointless tears, she tipped her head back and drew in a breath.

*

Light trickled in from the window, a pale and watery blue-gray puddle that grew wider and brighter as Jason watched it, waiting. 

He hadn't slept - not that that was surprising, or new. The only reason he retired like this every night even while his need for sleep was now a rarity was simply because he didn't know what else to do. That was what one did at night: go to bed. It gave him a sense of normalcy he found comforting, a period of time each day which anchored him to the life he had once had regardless of whether he slept or not. So he came back to this spot every night to spend whatever hours were left until dawn broke - not altogether sure why he did it, not sure what else he would do instead. 

Sometimes he closed his eyes and let his thoughts drift away, quiet and still in what might have been a form of meditation. Most of the time he simply lay there, curled in an awkward lump on the too-small bed, bear tucked in the crook of his arm. Such as tonight.

It was early morning now, when dawn was just a promise yet to come written in the lessening gloom. Too early to get up. Though he supposed it wouldn't have mattered if he did. 

These past few weeks had been quiet: not another soul to be seen or heard aside from himself and Whitney, which was how he liked it. If he had his way there would never be people there. Not on the grounds or by the lake, or in the surrounding woods. If he'd had the ability and the freedom to do so without drawing unwanted attention, he would build a great fence along the borders of the land - one tall and broad enough to keep any and everyone out. True, this would make going out to swipe supplies more difficult, perhaps impossible. But Jason rather thought that a price worth paying if it meant being left alone. Truly alone.

Except he wasn't alone anymore.

The fence had been a fantasy for as long as he could remember since crawling out of the lakeside muck, ever as feasible as was plucking a star from the sky, yet he had held onto it nonetheless. Now, though, when he thought about the look on Whitney's face when he'd brought her the bread liberated from a neighbor's open kitchen window - the near-blinding elation at something so small, so easy - he wasn't sure he could still calculate the loss worthwhile.  

He could almost feel her gaze on him, soft and absent any blame, and his chest tightened as though bound in iron. 

 _“It’s ok,”_ she had said. _“I haven’t exactly been a model prisoner.”_

Prisoner.

She hadn’t seen him wince, didn’t realize the word had cut. That wasn’t what she was, wasn’t what he thought of her, and the inability to tell her so had churned in his stomach like sour milk right alongside the shame as he fastened the cuffs about her wrists anew. Shame he still felt, coiling and wormlike, uneasy in his gut. But then his nights were often full of such things.

He knew in terms of the universal logic of chance that the circumstances of his birth were not the fault of anyone. Yet sometimes - most often in the dark hours when purpose was overcome by stillness - the negative space he experienced in the place of rest or inaction would gradually fill up with guilt and loss and misery that he knew wasn’t his to bear. He bore it anyway. 

While being a child, and being somewhat slower than average, the details had evaded him. In spite of his state of extreme naivety, he had been more than vaguely aware that things had not been easy for his mother, though just how much of this had been because of him wasn't a question to which he would ever get the answer. All he knew was that she cried sometimes when she thought he was playing outside or in his room, where he wouldn't hear. Every time he did hear, he had been unable to imagine the cause being anything but him.

All he had wanted had been to be someone else, something - anything - else to make life easier for the woman who had loved him and cared for him in spite of every part of him that was wrong. Even her death somehow felt like his fault, even though logically he knew that wasn't so. Logic was rational, but emotion was not. 

_"Jason!"_

He lurched bolt upright, startled, the little bed groaning in complaint under him. For the space of a second he just sat there while his brain reeled, a leaf buffeted in a windstorm.

It wasn't that he had forgotten the girl settled under the floorboards beneath him – how could he, after all. It was simply that they had never interacted during the time between sundown and sunup before, time they had organically agreed was time best spent in solitude. And she had never  _called_  for him before. 

Swinging his legs to the floor he abandoned the bear to the bedding and raced for the trapdoor.

It hadn't been panic in her voice, but something just as urgent, and he couldn't imagine why she would yell for him like that unless something was wrong. Alarm spiked, causing him to yank harder at the handle than was necessary to open it. His stomach squeezed, heart thudding with a drumbeat that echoed in his ears, his throat, as he darted down the shallow decline and rounded the corner.

She was standing, hunched slightly forward in the middle of her mattress, one hand pressed flat to her belly.

His entire body went cold as though his blood had been flushed with ice. Was she hurt? Sick? Fortunately, she was not inclined to wait for him to puzzle out how to translate these questions into gesticulation.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” she said shortly, “or I need bandages. One of the two.”

Alarm flashed like a beacon in his head. He might not have a grasp on the complexities of ankle injuries, but _bandages_ he understood quite plainly. She _was_ hurt.

“Now, please,” Whitney added, seeming disproportionately calm considering she’d just said she needed bandages. Her tone was equal parts tired and irritated, but not panicked, nor afraid, leaving him more than a little confused.

He crossed the room to her, unlocking the cuffs at her proffered wrists, questions he could not ask bursting in a colorful chaos between his ears and mouth. There was no new injury that he could see, no blood, certainly nothing that would have required bandaging, yet she winced when she straightened up to walk, waving him off when he reached for her arm to help.

He ended up half dragging her to the outbuilding, her ankle still too weak to carry her the whole way. She was too stubborn to let him just pick her up and do it and the tension she radiated made him too anxious to override her decision for fear of making things worse. So they struggled, his worry ratcheting upwards with every second longer it took them to move.

An impressively foul word wrenched its way from between Whitney’s teeth when they reached the cement steps. She clambered out of his arms before he could work out how to react and hobbled into the bathroom, leaving him to hover outside. 

A light was flicked on and the harsh yellow glow pooled from the open doorway. The rustling of things being moved about reached his ears, cloth and plastic, the clatter of something metallic falling to the floor. He heard a sink begin to run, a shallow splashing. Jason's hands curled reflexively into fists. He didn't want to barge in if she didn't want him to, but he didn't like being out here, not knowing what was going on. 

Did she need help? What if she needed help? Just because he didn't hear any retching didn't mean she wasn't sick. Should he go in? What should he do? 

The flow of water stopped, paving the way for a silence that had him gritting his teeth.

There were weary circles under her eyes when she emerged a moment later to lean heavily against the doorframe. "Ok," she sighed, words limned with a mix of annoyance and relief, "crisis averted." 

Jason just stared at her, nonplussed, unsure whether he should truly let go of the dread still gently fizzing in his bloodstream.

"Sorry if I was--if I startled you. Everything's all right. Just a biology thing."

He didn't need to see her reaction to know his blank look read loud and clear.

"Right," she mused, more to herself than to him, as if just remembering something. "Um...you know where babies come from, right?" 

He frowned at her, hopelessly confused. What did babies have to do with being sick?

Whitney's face twisted as though it were being physically rent between laughter and a grimace. "Right," she repeated, passing a hand over her face. For a split second as she turned her head the aurora of light caught in her hair, causing it to blaze coppery red. "Well, let's just say that every month I get a sort of--internal wound. Kind of. I bleed for a couple days and need bandaging like I would for a cut."

His pulse kicked hard at the word _bleed._ His eyes must have widened with the spark of dismay, for immediately she held out a placating hand.

"I'm not hurt, and I'm not in pain,” she soothed. “Not really. It’ll stop on its own in a few days."

Her exhale was weighted with something he couldn't identify, her brow creasing as though with the pain she claimed not to have.

"I promise everything's ok. I just want to go back to bed now."

There was surely skepticism in the look he shot her. There must be, for although the puzzlement and worry were louder, there was just enough room for a dash of disbelief. He was well acquainted with blood and knew what its presence meant. Still, she wasn't pale the way she would have been were she suffering from the loss of too much, and he could see nothing on her clothes or the floor. She just seemed tired. He supposed he had no choice but to trust her.

He reached on impulse, his hand finding hers and closing around it. He hadn’t meant to do it, it had simply happened, as though his arm had acted of its own will. Her eyes went wide, spots of color burning high at her cheeks, but she didn’t pull away as he thought she might. Nor did she refuse when he bent to hoist her up, instead settling against him as she had come to, arm folded over the slope of his shoulder and her knees against his ribs. He caught the blood then, if only faintly – the hot, salty-metallic tang of it warped and curled around some other scent he didn’t recognize – and made the determined effort not to react.

He forwent retreating to his own bed, pointless as it would have been. He arranged himself on the workbench stool as she curled up in her corner and tipped almost instantly into sleep, situating himself nearby so he could keep watch, just in case.

*

**Day 24**

“Can I try?”

Whitney sank to her knees amidst the carpet of dry fir needles next to Jason. He looked up from the coil of wire he’d been unspooling, regarding her over his pliers while the question hovered in the air between them.

Chances were he was surprised she’d spoken at all after two days of near-silence. Truth be told she felt more than a little bad about it. She wasn’t the nicest when menstruating on a good month, let alone when a lack of prescription was messing around with her symptoms and making her cramp up more than she ever normally did.

She’d wanted ibuprofen and a heating pad and ice cream with enough chocolate to turn her arteries to solid candy, but while she had kept her mouth shut knowing there was nothing to be done about it, she had still been sullen and unpleasant. He wouldn’t have understood her silent treatment any more than he would have if she’d been a raging bitch. She’d flat out refused to stay outside longer than it took to pee and to change tampons – because of course the girl with the bathroom supplies would have had only tampons and nothing else, and yes Whitney was well aware she should be grateful, but damn it she _loathed_ tampons – just for this reason. Because there was no reason she should make his days any more of a drag than she absolutely had to.

After a moment he gave in and offered the pliers with a fluid turn of his wrist. She took them, and he let her carry on unwinding wire for a new snare.

“So,” she began, feeling his eyes on her downturned face, “I owe you an apology.”

Being occupied by clipping the wire she didn’t see if he reacted. She would have bet not. He’d be waiting for whatever followed before he decided what to think about it.

“For being weird the past couple days.”

His hand came into view, offering a thin sliver of raw metal to shape into a clamp.

“It wasn’t about you or—or anything, and I didn’t mean to be rude or…” she stopped herself before falling back on the old standby. _Bitchy._

If he knew the word, if he knew what it meant, it would only be in its more literal form which would only confuse him. He wouldn’t understand what she was saying. And frankly, she had always hated the term, hated the power it had to belittle, to silence, to make insignificant. To turn legitimate feeling into something paltry and unworthy of being taken seriously.

“I’ve just been cranky and off. It’s part of the monthly bleeding thing. Hormones get crazy and there’s too much testosterone and my organs are having a temper tantrum and—”

She had glanced up in the middle of shaping the end of the wire into a loop just in time to see his head tilt. He was still watching her face, seemingly raptly focused on what she said, and while she knew she’d slipped into using words he wouldn’t know she had the impression that the puzzlement there wasn’t based in that. Again she got the feeling that he was curious about how she knew things like this, how to care for a sprained joint or a bleeding uterus. When she thought it about it, such knowledge might seem expansive and impressive to someone who simply didn’t have a basis for comparison.

"I'm… studying to be a nurse," she explained, "someone that helps other people when they're sick or hurt. I haven't taken my test yet, but I do know a lot about bodies and how they work."

The steely blue of his eyes sparked with fascination. He was brimming with questions - she could tell just by the subtle kinetic buzz of energy he exuded, genuine and infectious - and wished she had the power to read them, wished he had a way to write them down.

Well, she might not be able to answer the exact questions, but she could still talk in the hopes of hitting some. So she did.

She told him stories from school and from the clinic, probably committing a number of HIPPA violations and not giving half a damn while he guided her through the process of bending the bit of metal into place – something significantly more difficult than it looked.

They moved on down the deer trail and she told him about her draw toward the raw mechanics of the body; the intricate ways each system functioned alongside all the others, the near-magical ways it could heal itself, rework itself. She talked about the reward of easing pain, all the things that ceased to disgust her when they should have – as well as the things that made her skin crawl and her gag reflex engage – making up for the time she had spent in self-pitying quiet all while he listened. And _listened._

Whitney had to give him that – he was an incredibly good listener. In spite of the fact that he couldn’t have interrupted with words of his own, he had the uncanny ability to make his attention felt as though it were a kind of force he could direct as surely as his stride, and he never gave the impression that he was doing so out of obligation. He kept pace next to her, listening to her nerd out about the different kinds of suture as though it were the most interesting thing on the face of the earth, and he did so because he wanted to.

Mike had been a listener too. He had seemed to think her inclination toward school and books and her affinity for anatomy was intriguing, and even sexy; but he’d never listened like this, without any motive behind it but to learn. Just for its own sake.

Was it appropriate to be comparing her kidnapper with her dead boyfriend?

She cringed internally, and changed the subject.

“How old are you? Do you know?”

Tipping her chin she peered up at him. He seemed to be contemplating the question, trying to calculate the years. A moment later he shook his head.

“What about the year you were born?”

At this he stopped, crouching where he stood while simultaneously drawing the knife from his belt. Carefully, as though calling up half-remembered motions, he etched the tip of the blade against the ground, sketching four painstakingly neat numbers into the packed earth.

“You have beautiful handwriting,” she praised, although whether it was still handwriting when not executed with a utensil meant for the task was debatable. The numbers were straight and even, possibly from having been practiced over and over until they stuck, but also likely because he was accustomed to and skillful with small delicate detail work. Even while using a tool intended to gut and skin things.

He gave a little half-shrug as he rose that she might have called bashful if she didn’t know better.

_1973_

“It’s 2009 now,” she mused, doing the calculation in her head, “which makes you—thirty-six.”

That was only seven years her senior. Funny, she’d assumed he must be older, though she couldn’t put together why that was. Unless it had just been that she hadn’t been able to frame him in such human terms as age, mythic monster of local legend that he was supposed to be, and all.

There was a soft tap at her shoulder and she blinked back the surreal sense this bit of knowledge gave her to see him gesture to her.

He had an odd way of pointing, she had noticed: using both index and middle fingers rather than just the one. It softened what was otherwise an almost confrontational action, especially when he used it to refer to her.

“How old am I?” she clarified, and he nodded. “Twenty-nine.”

Jason’s eyes creased at the corners, glinting with amusement and…mischief? He extended a hand, holding it parallel to the ground and lowering it slightly.

“Hey— _hey!_ ” she cried in indignation that did nothing to hide her astonished laugh. “Excuse you, I am not little. I’ll be thirty in September.”

He lowered his hand by another inch and she rolled her eyes.

“Ok, fine, I’m little. But only compared to you, you freaking moose. Are you naturally this much of a pain in the ass or do you work at it?”

Jason’s shoulders shook with a soft huff of near-silent laughter.

“Oh, shut up,” she snapped playfully, turning her back and continuing down the trail.

With every step she took the stranger she felt, becoming more and more disturbed by the gentle teasing they’d just shared. The ease of it.

She had no business being this way, no business being so calm and casual. They weren’t friends. They weren’t _anything._ She couldn’t allow herself to forget that, even for the sake of her own emotional wellbeing. If she did then she was nothing but what everyone would call her, authorities, doctors, and the public alike: just another victim so grateful for any scrap of kindness that it didn’t matter what abuses she had suffered. Of course she wouldn’t be blamed. It wasn’t her fault, after all, she had only done what she must in order to survive. But life wasn’t that simple, and she wasn’t sure whether that was all she was doing. And knowing that felt like swallowing sand rather than the castor oil it was supposed to be.

They were just coming to a rocky stretch of terrain, one which climbed sharply and steeply up into the foothills. She was preparing to veer to the left and back down into the trees like they usually did when the shape moved in front of her. Her face lifted on instinct, focus narrowing in on the source of motion – the sleek, slinking tawny form of the mountain lion – and she actually felt her own thoughts grind to a halt as she froze.

The big cat seemed to follow suit, long body held low to the ground and coiled tight with latent energy as though caught mid-spring to the rocks. It stared at her out of wide, round eyes rimmed with black, at once wary and intent. Round ears folded backward, flattening against its skull as it crouched lower still.

Lips curled back from teeth like knives: fear, perhaps and a threat. And not one idly meant.

Automatically she tried to retreat, thinking to offer the animal space, her right foot – still not quite fully recovered - dragging against the scree as she stepped back and a low, guttural growl reached her ears.

Half a second passed – half a second spent in bated breath and the first flush of terror. Then she felt something brush past her, felt the hand curve around her side to shove her back. Her vision filled with Jason’s back, her world reduced to dull gray-brown quilting and the ghostly rasp of a great cat’s warning hiss.

Metal slid across leather binding and the machete came free, glinting bright with promise, and her throat locked. Her fingers gripped the back of his coat, curling around a fistful of fabric and threatening to add another tear to his collection. The wall of his back was solid as granite, the muscle in his arm - in the hand still splayed across her ribs – gone still and hard as though it had ceased to be mere flesh at all. Yet even then, though she was far from the forefront of his focus, he was very aware of his own strength; as aware of it as she was aware of her own breakability. Though he himself seemed to become as stone, his grip on her didn’t tighten. He just held her there, waiting. And there she stayed, not sure she had ever felt as safe as she did in that exact moment, because if any man could take on a fucking mountain lion it was this one.

For an agonizing few moments there was nothing - just a silence broken by her own shuddering breath. Just when she thought she might combust from of the stress of not knowing there was a muted scrabble of claws on rock, the lion evidently having decided against picking a fight and fleeing into the rocks, and Jason’s torso contracted, releasing a breath of his own.

Turns out Wade had been right all along about the predators in the woods. Just not about this particular one. Jason Voorhees, terror of mountain lions.

She snorted, half adrenaline and half hysteria.

And he had protected her, for some odd reason, as though it mattered to him whether she lived or not. As though she were important not simply as an asset, or an investment. As though she was…

The hand at her side relaxed, wide palm softening. His thumb slid against her ever so slightly, more twitch than anything else, neither intended nor meaningful, but Whitney stiffened as though she’d been scalded, startled by the rush of warmth that spread from it. She wasn’t quick enough to divert it, dazed by the speed with which everything had happened, wasn’t quick enough to stomp it out before it had a chance to kindle. Wasn’t quick enough to keep from wondering what it would have felt like to have that hand on her bare skin.

She jerked backward and out of reach – too late to stop it. Too late to keep her brain from reverting to something ancient and instinctive and completely beyond controlling.

He turned, the movement silk smooth, almost hypnotic, and her insides _shuddered._

What the _fuck_ was _happening?_

Whitney wasn’t disturbed by attraction for its own sake. She was practically-minded in addition to being a closet romantic, and she was not the kind of person to turn her face from nature. She was a sexual being and she liked boys. But she had never really thought overmuch about sex. Oh she liked it well enough, it just hadn’t ever been a priority in itself. It had never been a driving force in her life, never been something she couldn’t just put out of mind when there were other, more important things to focus on, and she had never once in her life looked at a boy and found herself considering his potential as a mate. She had no experience with that - with the part of her mind currently declaring that this man would take care of her, whether she were healthy or sick or injured. Or pregnant.

_Whoa._

Some defensive shield in her mind slammed down, separating her and an idea far too disturbing to handle just then.

Jason was staring at her, eyes narrowed slightly in a way that was at once cautious question and concern bordering on the edge of unease. It was clearly a request for assurance, because clearly she was not all right and he wouldn’t know why. _Couldn’t_ know why.

Could never, _ever_ know why.

Winded, horrified, Whitney took a breath that burned like swallowing a mouthful of cinders, and forced her face into what felt like a normal expression that convinced neither of them.

“Sorry,” she tried, half choking on the word that did not want to be spoken. “Um--this way, right?”

She didn’t wait for an answer, just barreled headlong into the trees, needing distance and space and just wanting to throw back her head and scream until she stripped her own voice. But she still felt his hand there, broad and heavy and too warm against her side; felt it as though it had pressed through her too-big shirt to brand her underneath. Felt it all the way back down the trap line as she fidgeted every time he glanced her way and pretended she wasn’t a nanosecond away from losing her shit.

What shit? Did she have shit to lose if she was thinking about this? If she wanted…

 _No._ That wasn’t a path she was ready to follow. Not now, not today. Not while he was three yards away and watching her like he was waiting for her to shatter. Which she very well might.

Jesus Christ, she didn’t even _want_ kids. But hormones didn’t care about insignificant things like that. All hormones cared about was finding the biggest, most dangerous thing there was and doing whatever it took to convince that thing to stay with them, provide for them, keep them safe. And if that meant jumping its bones so much the better.

What the fuck. _What the fuck!_

Jason seemed to gather that she was in desperate need of space and time in her own company, for which she was immeasurably grateful. She curled up in a tight little ball with her back wedged in the corner, pressing herself into the metal mesh panel as if she hoped to override the remembered sensation of touch with its pattern.

Trembling, body shaking as though to tear itself apart, she pressed her face against the cool rock wall and dug her fingers into the raw, jagged marks she had made there as she cried until she thought she might vomit.

When had this become tolerable? When had this hell stopped feeling like a hell? At exactly what point had she lost her goddamn mind?

By the time she calmed down enough to think she had ricocheted to a state of over-logical apathy. Nature was strange and humans were no exception; weird water-based creatures that they were, full of chemicals that simultaneously clashed and coincided. She could accept discovering that deep down the sheer strangeness of her circumstances had unearthed the deep-set primordial cavewoman parts of herself. She could accept that apparently she hadn’t favored lean, slender men as much as she’d thought. But she could not accept that she couldn’t tell how much was real and how much was that she was cracking under the strain of being in this place.

She could not. Would not.

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit.
> 
> This chapter basically wrote itself. I fought it a little in the beginning, but clearly this is the way it wants to be written, and as this is the part of the story I had the least prior planning detail-wise, I went with it. And it felt awesome. I haven't written like this in a while. That said, I've got a lot of notes. Soooo…here goes.
> 
> My background and primary focus as an epic fantasy romance writer is truly shining through in this chapter, for better and worse. If anyone was unsure as to why I labeled this primarily as a romance, I hope the why is becoming clear, and if that's not your jam…seriously, jump ship now. It's only going to get worse. Bring on the rapid-escalation angsty pining, baby. And aaaaaaaaaaalll the ridiculous metaphors.
> 
> I fully realize the likelihood that Jason would have gone around swiping bread from unsuspecting neighbors is basically nil. But I liked the image, so it's in here. Shh.
> 
> Also yeah, there is absolutely pointed social commentary here. Yes, I'm talking about patriarchal structure and yes, one of the things I find most fascinating about Jason as a character is the relative blank slate he would be in a lot of ways. I'm projecting a lot into Whitney in regards to this, but as a woman that is painfully aware of and affected by this shit daily, I'm fine with that. It's important, so I'm writing about it.
> 
> Actually, now that I think about it, this chapter took quite a turn into the LET'S TALK ABOUT LADY ISSUES department. Like how sex is weird when you first learn about it, but once you start actually feeling shit it's fucking terrifying. I don't know if that's universal or not, but I know for certain that there is a definite slant to it when you're female. And HIIIIIII LET'S TALK ABOUT PERIODS. Because film cannon says she was down there for SIX FUCKING WEEKS and it was just not an issue? OK THEN. Nope. Periods are a thing and they're awful and uncomfortable and THEY FUCKING HAPPEN. Also, birth control. And the term "bitchy."
> 
> If anyone doesn't know, HIPPA is American legislation regarding medical privacy. Used here in reference to talking about specific patients/cases outside of the professional setting.
> 
> I messed around with Jason's birthdate and age here. In the remake canon his birthdate is listed as 1969, which would make him 40 if we use 2009 as present time. As I can't see Whitney being much older than a med student and therefore in later parts of post-college kind of schooling, which would put her around my own age which is not quite 30. Now, all things considered, 10 years difference isn't awful. Buuuuuuuuuuut…I've aged him down a couple years just to ease my conscience a little bit. I'm also taking liberties with what things he does and doesn't know and/or can and cannot do insofar as the "mental handicaps" are concerned, but I have since the beginning. Just go with it.
> 
> The mountain lion part is pure self-fanservice and I don't give a fuck. Come at me.
> 
> I'm still debating whether or not I'm going to fill the entire canon six weeks or whether I'm going to shorten it. We're just going to have to see what happens.
> 
> And I think that's it… XD thanks for reading my babble.
> 
> Also: to everyone who left kudos, comments, and have decided to follow this beast, my sincerest gratitude. I would write this anyway, but it absolutely makes me happy to see others getting something out of it too. Thank you so much. I adore you.
> 
> Until next time!


	10. Terrible Thing

****

* * *

 

**Day 25**

He must have done something. Jason could think of no other reason why Whitney was acting the way she was.

She had been talking again; laughing in response to his playfully deeming her young and small. Which she was, though one slightly more literally than the other which was mostly in jest. He had thought she was teasing back – if the moose comment was any indication - and the lighthearted swipes she’d made had sent tendrils of pleasant warmth to coil within his chest. Everything had been fine. Until it hadn’t been.

He’d been following a short distance behind her, watching as she walked. He wasn’t sure why in retrospect, since her injury had almost fully healed, but he remembered being rather fascinated by the way she moved. 

He was vaguely familiar with the idea that male and female bodies utilized motion differently – they were  _physically_  different, after all, in frame and shape, size and strength ratios. It was a thing he knew but had never really considered beyond the general acknowledgement. He’d never left anyone alive long enough to study such things. But he'd found himself doing just that: tracing her steps, the subtle caution in them, as though she were subliminally trying not to disturb the peace around her.

Whitney, being female, simply didn’t move the way he did. The baggy shirt had eliminated all but the occasional hint of the shape underneath from shoulders to mid-thigh; something he disliked rather more than completely made sense to him. Still, he could trace the sleek lines of her legs as she went; the graceful, sloping transition from thighs to calves and down to slim ankles. There was a subtle sway to her walk centering in the hips which softened each step she took, turning it into something flowing and smooth, not unlike water or song translated to movement and quite unlike the rigid pattern of his own stride. Everything about her was soft, he’d thought; soft and curving and strangely captivating.

He remembered at the time feeling somewhat over-warm, which had been odd enough to distract him. He couldn't recall the last time he had felt truly hot or cold. He sweated, or course, suffered gooseflesh; his body was still flesh and behaved as such, but temperature hadn't affected him since his emergence. Yet he had been starting to feel the almost suffocating sensation of being overheated - the weight of his normally comfortable clothes too much, too close, too constrictive. He hadn't been sweating, though, just...too warm. He had just been wondering whether he should shrug out of his coat when he'd heard the growl. 

Dread chased on the heels of his surprise. Of all the animals that dwelt in these woods it was cats of which he was most wary. Even bears were relatively easy to deal with, but the mountain lions could be difficult to predict, most especially when startled. He had the scars to prove it. And Whitney...

Whitney was well within leaping distance.

He had burst into motion, one hand falling to rest upon the machete’s hilt while the other snared her around the middle, drawing her backward with the same swift stride he took to insert himself in front of her. She had been almost fever-hot beneath his hand, a supple weight against his back where he’d pressed her flush against him. He had felt the thready race of her breath, the rapid swell and collapse of her lungs beneath bone and flesh and flannel where his palm curved with the shape of her waist, had felt her grip his coat, her sharp intake of breath when he’d freed the blade at his side. The cat’s lips had drawn back, teeth bared. It had made the threat to strike, stiff forepaw lifted slightly as though debating whether it was better to fight or flee, and he wasn’t certain what made the beast decide to back down, nor had he cared. He had cared only about the girl behind him – the girl that had abruptly shoved herself out of his grasp with a sound like a kitten being strangled. He’d turned around to see her face gone white as death, her bright eyes burning into him with all the fear he hadn’t seen since dragging a corpse through the tunnels.

After that it was like the easy conversation of before had never been, as though they had not just laughed together. She was distant, apart, as though she had become separated from him by some sheer, impenetrable barrier he couldn’t see, fidgeting and wound so tight that he very seriously wondered whether she was going to twist herself into pieces, and he had no idea what had caused it. She had taken to wearing a mask of her own: wielding false, stunted smiles as if to pretend there was nothing wrong. As if he couldn't tell the difference.

Two days interspersed with wary, panicked looks he couldn’t explain. Of words spoken only in need, in terms of  _yes_  and  _no_  and  _thank yous_ graciously given but that set his teeth on edge. Twice he caught the gasping, shuddering sounds of crying and found her face stained glossy with the stains of tears she stubbornly refused to acknowledge. Each time he asked, in his way, and while he knew there was something to be desired in simply indicating the remnants and expecting her to understand, he knew full well that she did. She was not so cruel as to feign ignorance, but nor did she answer. She would only force her mouth into a brittle, wheat-paste curve that in no way reached her eyes and insist she was all right, and no matter how many skeptical, disbelieving stares he pinned her with she never budged. 

He didn’t understand it. She hadn’t been hurt, he’d made sure of that. He could have understood being frightened by the cat, even afterwards, but he was far too familiar with being the source of fear to mistake the direction of hers. 

It bothered him. Fiercely. It bothered him that he couldn’t ask and therefore couldn’t fix it, and it bothered him to be so troubled by it. Her actions, her misery, were her choice. She had no obligation to answer him, no obligation to  _be_ all right let alone to act it. She owed him nothing. He should have shrugged it off and let her be. But he just couldn't shake it. He couldn't let it go. Even as he went on his rounds, sun beating down like a punishment, he kept turning it obsessively over in his mind - the same cycle of questions over and over until he thought he might go mad. What had happened? What had he done to push her back into such a state? Why wouldn't she tell him?

Technically, he had already been on rounds early that morning, but he'd had to move - had to put distance between himself and the girl at the root of his temporary insanity. He'd cut their walk short, brought her back, and promptly left, finding he simply couldn't stand to be so close to her when all he could see or feel was how wrong everything was. He couldn't stand to be near her when all he wanted to do was  _fix_  it, for things to go back to the way they had been - comfortable, easy - wanted her to say what was bothering her rather than concealing it up behind the bland, meaningless lie of  _fine._

Oh, how he had come to detest that word. He hated the way she used it as if she was deflecting a blow, as though every questioning look he sent her was an attack. It made him want to grab her by the shoulders and shake her until she dropped the pretense. Until she did something, anything,  _real_ even if it meant having to swallow the fear he could thus far only taste. He hated that he kept allowing her to lull him into thinking she was content and happy until something he couldn’t see ripped it apart to leave him standing in a crater of confusion and…hurt.

The instant it came to him he rejected it, casting the word from his mind like a venomous snake. He was  _not_  hurt. She didn’t have that power. He refused to grant her that power. It was merely that her unpredictability was wearing on him, leading to agitation. That was all.

It had to be.

But frustration still slithered hot and blistering between his organs no matter what he told himself.

He paused in his examination of a broken branch, fingers stilling mid-measure of splintered bark and mind stilling mid-fervent thoughts. Had he heard something? He thought he had, but sound could carry strangely with so many obstacles in between. He listened, motionless, waiting, and it came again. A low, broken murmur of voices.

People.

Jason had never been anything but coolly wrathful upon hearing human noise in his territory, but today he was downright relieved. Which was in of itself alarming. Was he truly in such dire need of a distraction? Well…not so much a distraction as an outlet, something onto which he could unleash his frustration. And the answer was yes. Yes, he was.

Still alarming.

They weren't difficult to find. He tracked them by sound alone to a clearing on the other side of the lake. There were three of them: two male and a female laughing and yelling and drinking from brown glass bottles as they slowly set up a pair of tents. A task they would never get to finish. 

He didn't pause to study them a while first as he usually would have done. He simply strode into the clearing, seized one of the young men by the back of the head and slammed him into a tree. He could feel the skull give beneath his hand, long-solidified bone seams splitting like those in a plastic globe, and Jason knew the man was dead before he slumped to the dirt. Satisfaction surged in his blood, all brimstone and the icy calm of vengeance appeased.

" _Jesus--!_ "

The word was punctuated by a scream, shrill and scraping like metal upon glass. Jason's jaw clenched, eyes narrowing against the sound as he turned on the remaining pair. 

The other man had bolted: a flailing, crashing shape in the brush. But the woman dove instead for the tangle of bags and tent equipment scattered across the ground, a small hatchet gleaming in one hand when she straightened. Clutching it between her hands she hurled it with a grunt, aiming wide if she even aimed at all. He caught it midair, fingers closing at the base of the metal and flipping it with the easy confidence of someone far more accustomed to the handling of such tools.

When he threw, he did not miss. She lurched; one step, then two steps sideways, peering wide-eyed down at the blade buried deep in her chest, splintering sternum. A tiny garbled wheeze slipping from her as she sank to her knees, indicating a punctured lung. Blood followed, trickling along the corner of her mouth. It would be an agonizing death, drowning in her own blood with her chest collapsing upon itself. Jason freed the machete from its straps as he went to her, gripping her by the chin and slitting her throat with a delicate slide of the blade to ease her passing. She slumped, the last traces of light slipping from her eyes, and he shifted his attention to the runner.

Judging from the frenzied sounds the man was making he was bound to exhaust himself sooner rather than later. Jason knew just from listening that he could catch the idiot with little to no fuss by simply following at a walk. But he didn't want an easy kill. He didn't want to wait and stalk from the shadows. He wanted fuss. He wanted blood. 

And so he gave chase.

The man was slim, reedy, and by all laws of nature should have been as slippery as a weasel. Terror made him a staggering, blundering mess. Poisoned with adrenaline, he charged blindly through brush and foliage, tripping over every rock and rise in the ground. He seemed to realize that escape was out of reach; that Jason was significantly faster and that even at his best his hope would have been in the negatives. He was simply acting out his death throes before they reached him.

It took almost no time at all to gain, to get close enough to see the darting flash of the whites of the man’s eyes as he glanced back over one shoulder. Whatever he saw seemed enough to crumble whatever last remnants of coordination his body possessed for his foot caught on seemingly nothing at all to send him crashing to the dirt and moss in an ungainly, flail.

There was a space of seconds during which time slowed, when the man wrestled himself onto his back and dragged his own weight along the ground as if the action would buy him still one more breath, lifting a hand as if imploring.

Jason’s body slowed of its own accord, something about the posture, the hand raised in supplication was familiar…

“Don’t,” the man whimpered, voice hoarse and trembling nearly as much as the rest of him. “ _Please--don’t_  kill me--!”

That was all it took to destroy the delicate thread of hesitation: words spoken as though they had the power to subdue or divert him, speaking as though somehow, in some way, words could change anything. As though words could mend that which was broken. That was what people did. They poisoned and destroyed everything around them, and when he came to settle the score they pleaded, wheedled, and reasoned as though they were on even footing. What they could never seem to understand was that he was not their equal, that there was no negotiating. The damage was done and the tithe must be paid.

Jason bore down on his prey and the man’s face paled somehow still farther in realization – recognizing the shape of his own death. The scream was just starting to form, a kindling flame, but with a single smooth thrust Jason shoved the end of the machete through the offending throat before it could emerge, reducing it to a fading gurgle.

With a twist of his hand, Jason wrenched the blade free, turning the clean cut into a ragged, open gouge. Blood spurted sluggishly in the absence of the metal, but the eyes of the dying man were already glassy and blank, feeling nothing. Unlike his killer.

For Jason had remembered where he had seen that raised, warding hand before, the body hunched and inwardly curled, cowering at his feet. The white face drawn and bleached of color, peering up at him with eyes wide as dinner plates. He could still remember the sound of her screams, high and sharp and wracked with her terror.  _He_  had done that. He had never before felt shame in the things he had done, necessary, righteous as they had always felt. But looking back on it now he was ashamed of that. 

_“No--don’t touch me!”_

For the briefest instant corpse upon the earth bore Whitney’s face, slender and finely boned, her gold and green eyes. For an instant, he stood frozen, unable to banish the sudden image of his hands – his blades – on her, punishing and in anger.

His stomach heaved, twisting as though to reject contents it didn’t carry, useless nausea squeezing unhappily at the back of his throat. The wrath at the new trespass broke like a fever, dissipating from blood and muscle tissue to leave him bone-weary and nearly lightheaded. He hadn’t done it - he  _wouldn’t._  Not now. Yet it took him a moment to identify it as true. Suddenly all he could think of was the way she had been shying from him every time he touched her lately: her breath catching in her throat as if it might strangle her, her heartbeat spiking. The way she had torn herself from his grasp, backed away and out of reach. Her eyes round and wide as if she had once again become a prey thing.

Had it…had it been the way he'd _touched_  her? That had been a reflexive thing and done with the intent to keep her safe, but clearly it had frightened her.

He didn't know when precisely the promise had been made, but he'd sworn to himself that he would never again touch her in temper. It wasn't about any fear that he would hurt her, he was far too controlled for a slip like that. It was a matter of principle. He didn't have the right to once he'd given her back her life. But she couldn't know that. All she had were the cues he gave, and something about his handling of her must have reminded her that she had every reason to keep her distance. 

For a moment, this seemed to be the answer, and he felt satisfied in that knowledge until he realized how very little it actually resolved. It didn't actually make sense. Whitney was clever; she could follow his sad attempts at communication far better than he ever could have expected, far better than he could have had their roles been reversed. Even if startled, he simply couldn't believe she wouldn’t see that handling her roughly had only been a result of seeing to her safety.

If there was a part of her that truly thought he still retained the will or capacity to hurt her she would not have grown so comfortable instigating touch the way she had in the time he’d spent as her crutch. She would not have so easily reached for his forearm to brace herself, nor so calmly allowed him to carry her for the distances he had. At first she might have been tense and a bit awkward, but by the time she healed she had come to be at ease there, balanced against his shoulder. He was certain of it. It made no sense that she would forget about it entirely the instant something unexpected happened. No, there was something he was missing - something outside the expanse of his knowledge. Maybe it had nothing to do with him beyond that first initial moment. Maybe he was reading far too deeply into it than was necessary.

Still, of one thing he could be sure. She was unhappy and he didn't like it.

He considered this as he tossed the limp, bleeding body over a shoulder and toted it back to the would-be campsite. Whether there were amends to make or no, he needed to find something to bring the real smiles back, the laughter, the way the bread had done. Could he do that again? It would probably be unwise to steal from the same house so quickly. His occasional payments taken in supplies or fuel were begrudgingly tolerated in trade for being allowed to share - and briefly cross - the borders, and for remaining otherwise left alone. But if he pushed them, took too much too often there was a chance of drawing more or outside attention. Even knowing this he hesitated no longer than a moment before deciding. The calculation weighed the possibility of seeing a genuine smile higher than the risk. 

The body met the ground with a hearty thud as he shrugged it off. He dragged it by the arm the rest of the way to a clump of dense brush where the local coyotes often gathered during their nightly runs. He did the same with the other two, piling them loosely together to await their fate of being scented out and eaten. In a few days he would circle back to the spot and bury whatever remained. It would be messy and unpleasant, still it was a considerably easier form of disposal, and one he could only utilize out here in the denser sections where there was little chance of discovery.

Besides, spending less time on body disposal would allow him to get on with the rest of his errands more quickly, and, subsequently, back to Whitney.

In spite of the tension of the past few days he had found himself increasingly disinclined to stray from her for too long, which he could neither fully make sense of nor explain. The only thing he had to compare it to was the hollow, sinking dread he'd felt when he had discovered her gone - and even that didn't really come close. It was as though he simply didn't want to be away from her without any real, solid reason to provide a framework for the want, which was all manner of illogical. She was nothing to him...but clearly that couldn't be true. Such strong responses to loss didn't come out of nothing, and the response to track down and bring an errant girl anywhere but to her death was nothing if not strong. To say nothing of actively  _protecting_  her. And yet he had done both. What did that mean?

He had no idea, and the not knowing disturbed things like a quake disturbed the earth. Soundly, and irrevocably, and in ways he didn’t know how to process.  
  
Jason set to work on the litter of bags and equipment the campers had brought, sorting through what to keep and what to hide. Things that might have been left by virtue of absentmindedness he could leave and feel relatively secure. The possessions of the occasional singular passerby he could bury with the confidence they would go undiscovered. With so much baggage, however he didn't feel it entirely safe to leave it. He would have to haul a good deal of it back to the crawlspace, add it to the hoard of things down there that would never be used. First, though, he went through the lot of it for things that he might be able to utilize.   
  
One entire duffel bag was full of food - or, rather, what he supposed must be food considering the packaging. Big crinkly bags that were airy light and full of things that rattled when shaken, more of the thin brown glass bottles, still sealed, plastic multi-colored packages containing cylindrical sleeves of what looked like crackers and of chemicals. Somehow, in spite of the appearance, Jason suspected that while technically edible the things there might not actually be considered food where the matter of sustenance was concerned. Still, he set them aside to bring back with him. Another two bags were full of clothing, which he also habitually made to set aside before he reconsidered. 

Undoing the snaps, he rifled through the contents, examining a pair of pants not unlike the ones Whitney had been wearing when he had found her. Another pair with the legs cut off, the wounds fraying white. Several shirts far smaller than the oversize plaid thing he'd brought her. Small enough that they might actually fit her. There were other things as well: socks, a little case of toiletries, the tiniest undergarments - or what he thought were undergarments - he had ever seen, a strange elastic and wire device that he had no idea as to its purpose but didn't want to throw away just in case its importance escaped him.

He set the entire bag aside to take back with him, glad of something else he might present as a peacemaking gesture. If she had needed to change once, for whatever reason, she might need to again, and it would be good to have something waiting for her when that time came.  
  
In the end he had six bags to take back, two to keep and four to stow away underground. The rest, the things he could count on to rot and degrade naturally, he scattered - a broken trail of breadcrumbs leading nowhere. 

There was no bread this time. But there were muffins, golden and studded with fat violet berries, sitting out on a rack just within reaching distance of the cracked window. He wondered at the ease of it as he snatched up two and deftly eased the window back, at just how convenient it was that the cooling items were set so close to the window that had been left partly open both times he'd happened to come by of late. Perhaps it was better not to examine it too closely.

With a pointed thought of thanks, he circled back around to the campers' bags and headed homeward.

He had taken to keeping a stash of cans up in the kitchen by the hotplate for the sake of convenience, and he took a moment to open one of these and heat it before descending to the tunnel. Most of the bags he left in the cluttered kitchen to deal with later, but the bag with clothes and with potential foodstuffs he took with him, nursing the hope that she might like them

When he entered the tunnel room, it was to find her set upon by tiny furry creatures. The one or two adventurous individuals seemed to have spread the word for the number of rats that now regularly came calling begging for treats and attention had grown. There were currently five little bodies piled on her lap, picking bits of dried banana out of her cupped hand. Another had taken up residence in the other hand, licking at her fingers for salt or lingering traces of sugar, while yet another was nosing about in her hair.

He approached slowly, trying to appear as non-threatening as he knew how. She didn't look up right away, keeping her attention fixed on her rodent companions, but the squeeze of apprehension in his chest lessened when he drew near enough to see her face; for there was a smile there. Faint, perhaps, just a slight upturn at the very corners of her mouth. But it was there, and it was real. 

It wasn't until he saw the ghost of it again that it occurred to him just how  _much_  affect its absence had made. How much he'd missed it beyond the indication it served of contentment. How much he missed the genial interaction.

He missed the time they had spent reading outside in the afternoons. He had hoped they might start a new book, having finished the last one, but she had been distant even from them. It seemed the rats were the only thing that could penetrate the aura of gloom, and it was quite possible that this was only due to their aggressive persistence. He might have copied them just to see what happened if something in his brain didn’t stall at the idea of forcefully imposing on her space by crawling onto her lap and shoving his masked face into her hand. Even if he'd had the courage to do it he couldn't imagine it going over well. Not to mention there was no way he could ever fit on her lap without simply crushing her. 

Setting down the bags to one side, he sank into a crouch beside the bedside crate, watching the antics of the rats grabbing and gnawing at their snack with the fervor of starvation. They always ate with such haste, as though every morsel might be their very last. The one at her shoulder had begun chewing experimentally at a piece of her hair and he put down the bowl of soup to reach for it, gently untangling little clawed feet from a reddish curl. He cradled it there in his palm, reaching into the bag of banana for a piece to offer in exchange, stroking down the warm brown fur at its back as it scarfed banana with half-frantic gusto.  

"All right, moochers," Whitney murmured, carefully shooing rats off her lap as she did, "no more today."   
  
Following her lead, he lowered his own rat to join the rest. He could feel her eyes on him, a touch of awareness he felt like the brush of something cool, and realized that when he had dislodged the rat in her hair she hadn't flinched away from him. He was right, then - it wasn't that she was afraid of his touch. 

He nearly jumped out of his skin when her hand darted out to grip the ragged hem of his sleeve. 

"Are you...?" 

She was frowning as she peered down at his hand, turning it over in her grasp as though looking for something and not bothering to hide her concern.

Surprised, he blinked down at his own wrist to see the blood there, dried into a flaking crust upon the fabric and smeared across his knuckles. She thought he was hurt - she was looking for an injury. Something in him softened at the thought that she could be miserable and afraid and yet still be distressed at the thought of him injured. 

Extending his other hand, he let his fingertips brush the underside of her chin. While he applied no pressure, she startled slightly as she lifted her face to look at him, and he felt the delicate motion of her throat as she swallowed. He waited until she met his eyes before shaking his head in answer. He did so once, slowly, trying to communicate through eyes alone - at once emotive and yet nowhere near expressive enough - that he was not the one to whom that a question as to wellness should be directed.

A tiny furrow appeared between her brows, lips parting as if she were going to speak. Before she could, he released her chin and pointed to her: deliberately holding the indication as solidly as he held her gaze until he watched the bewilderment shift to understanding. 

With a flutter of dark lashes, she averted her eyes, drawing them back down to the fabric she still fingered as though it had secrets to divulge. Ever so slightly, her shoulders dropped, and he realized she had just let go of tension she had been holding possibly for days. It had the weight of a sigh, of a long, slow exhale used to steady body and mind.  

"I'm..." 

A part of him had braced for the inevitable (and meaningless) insistence of  _fine_ and was briefly thrown when it didn't come. He had been prepared to insist, to push her as much as he could without a voice, but he hadn't had to. 

"I don't really know," she finally finished. 

Well...it was definitely more than she'd given him yet. He waited patiently, hoping she might offer more. 

"I think I'm just...I don't recognize parts of myself right now and it's freaking me out a little."

Surprisingly, for the vagueness of the statement, Jason found himself empathizing. He might not know to what exactly she was referring, but he understood what it was to be unsettled by change, to be caught unawares and set so off center that it felt like the entire world was thrown off its axis. His own world had been set at an unusual angle ever since having found her; and while he had struggled against it, pulled and yanked like a horse at the bit, but after a point, struggling had become more a waste of energy than anything productive. His life had changed -  _he_  had changed. All because of one split-second choice made in a state of shock and confusion. He could choose to rail against it, be angry about it. Or he could accept it. It sounded as though Whitney was in the same place he had been, trying to reconcile what she thought should be and what was.

He nodded, and while she wasn't looking at him she must have caught it out of her periphery. Somehow, she had followed the path of his thoughts, for with a thoughtful lilt she considered: "you know exactly what I'm talking about, don’t you? Except for you that's...well, me."

She released his sleeve, dropping her hands to her lap. Once again she was listless and quiet and he frowned behind his mask, once again feeling the unpleasantly sour strain of not-quite remorse nipping at the back of his mind. With a hint of desperation, he produced the muffins. Like an offering before a deity he placed the cheesecloth-wrapped bundle on the crate and waited, tense and holding his breath. She eyed it; a single coppery brow arched in what he hoped was curiosity. When she set down her spoon and reached for it he imagined he could hear the sound of his own heart echoing in his ears it beat so loud.

With a flick of a wrist, she opened it, staring at the contents for a long second that felt like forever. Her face crumpled, and for a fleeting, horrible instant he was sure she was going to cry and his heart plummeted. That was, until she spoke again, a soft, tremulous murmur he wasn't entirely sure he was meant to hear.

"You're trying to cheer me up."

His brow creased with concern. Had she been sad? Because of all the tumult in her head? It had been a statement not a question, yet he nodded anyway, daring to hope.   

"Thank you," she said, in a whisper so soft that he only barely heard the words it carried. Yet there was gratitude there. Gratitude and what sounded like relief. Only then did he allow himself to let go of the breath he had been holding. 

Sitting back on his heels he watched her slide the bowl of soup along the crate toward herself - watched her cast a longing look of promise at the muffins - and settle in to eat. It was the most enthusiasm she had shown food in some time, which was not exactly a lot, but it was still encouraging to see. She didn't appear bothered by his nearness, and while she did cast the occasional glance his way, the looks were much more along the lines of curious than cautiously wary.

When the soup was gone, she picked up one of the muffins and he noticed how large it was, cradled there between her hands. She had nice hands, he thought, as hands went. Deft and slender with delicate bones. There was a scar just below the prominent knuckle of her left middle finger. A burn, probably, the skin so long healed that what must once have been a red mark had faded to silvery pink. She had broken the muffin into halves, and he just caught the slight tilt of her wrist as if to offer him one before she stilled, uncertain. Her eyes flicked up to his masked face, a quick, brief glance of acknowledgement and…yes, tentative amusement, as she returned it to the cloth wrapper instead. Still, he recognized the thought behind the gesture, if not as much the warm, delicate flutter behind his ribs that followed.

He waited for her to finish eating before gesturing for her to stand, noting her tiny frown of question when she let him take her wrists to unlock the cuffs. 

"But I don't need..."

Hushing her with a look, he laid a hand against her back just below the shoulder blades. Then he gently nudged her toward the mouth of the tunnel and outside. 

*

It was incredible how dark it could get so far from any big cities. The sun hadn't yet fully set, but the shadows fell heavy and deep within the protective enclosure of a wooded space. Spacious paths became close and less familiar and might have seemed oppressive if not for the company.

Her feet made dull, hollow thuds against the wood of the little bridge. The very same bridge upon which she had stood with Mike when he'd told her it had been on her mom's request that he had brought her there. It felt like such a long time ago now. Far longer than a month. 

She didn't know why Jason had brought her outside, but she was willing to go with it. The air was so much cooler now than it had been during the day, even underground, and out here she no longer felt like the life was being slowly stifled out of her. She could breathe out here, relish the sensation of the perspiration drying in cold patches at her back and hairline and recover, having just narrowly avoided an emotional breakdown - of which she had already had two in as many days. And over muffins, of all things.

Goddamn  _muffins._

Although it wasn't really about the muffins at all. It was...well, everything, really.   
  
Apathy and denial made a good solid shield: had done so since she was little, before doctors starting throwing around terms like  _adolescent-onset anxiety, grief-related depression,_  and  _coping mechanisms._ Except that she wasn't coping very well this time. It appeared as though the years she had spent leaning on that shield had taken a toll. It had taken quite a beating over the years, she supposed, and with every blow, every additional scrape and dent had weakened it to the point where it could no longer hold. Not that she had realized this until she was throwing up her breakfast into the toilet the morning after the  _revelation_  (or whatever the hell it had been).

The protective cocoon of apathy had splintered; every crack a direct path to a nerve now exposed. Her mind - as was made resoundingly clear to her - could no longer block the unpleasantness out and her body had reacted as if it could purge the things she so desperately wanted to reject. She had had the second full-on panic attack of her life there in that tiny summer camp bathroom stall and just like after the first back in her sophomore year of college she was left feeling stripped down to the bone, exhausted and trembling and completely, utterly wrecked.   
  
Jason had noticed immediately that something was wrong. He had before, undoubtedly, but if he hadn't then he would have then when she emerged trembling and sweat-soaked and stinking of the vomit she had no doubt he could smell regardless of her efforts to scour it away with half a tube of toothpaste. She was intimately familiar with how the sour stench permeated a space, emanating just as much from pores as from breath, and she was no exception to that norm. Oh, he had noticed all right, and she had deliberately avoided making eye contact to avoid the questions she knew would be there. Questions that had been there since the moment he had turned around to find her staring at him as though he had just tried to tear out her throat. Questions she couldn't answer.

How could she answer when just to see them - not even hear them, but  _see_  them - made the world she understood drop out from under her? How could she answer a question like " _are you ok"_  when she no longer understood what  _ok_  was? Yet she had felt it every time he sent her one of those lingering looks cast in concern, somehow louder than any shout could have been and as stinging as a slap - as much accusation as worry or inquiry.

Everything she had done from that point she had done purely out of self-preservation, and it had felt more real, more tenuous and threatening then even the moments spent certain she was looking death in the eye. She had avoided his gaze, disengaged quickly whenever touch was necessary, and acted firmly and decisively as if nothing had changed. She distanced herself, trying her damnedest to exert some manner of control over space, her mind - whatever she had left that was hers - to counteract the feeling of being cut loose and left to tread open water. She wasn't subtle and she was a shit actor, but what else could she do? How was she supposed to cope?

She couldn't get away on her own and he didn't seem inclined to release her, probably because he assumed the second he did was the second she went straight to the police. Not that she suspected they would do anything about it after however many years of missing persons reports and a clear plausible culprit still at large, even with a testimonial from a witness.

So she couldn't run and she couldn't stay, couldn't keep faking her way through the pretense that they both knew was bullshit. She slept fitfully when she slept at all, and when she woke it was with the sensation of blood slick between her fingers and caked in the creases of her palms and she spent uncounted minutes scrubbing her hands with dirt until she could no longer feel it. She knew it was guilt. Guilt tapping into trauma not unlike picking at a scab until it cracked and bled. She knew what it was, but knowing only gave it a name. Knowing didn't block the echoes of old screams from her head.

She felt guilty for surviving, for living when others had not, and guilty for relaxing her grip on the horror of it - for having the audacity to look upon a killer and feel anything beyond all the reasons why she should hate him. She could almost convince herself, too, almost find the will to summon up that terror-founded loathing, even if just a thin, watered-down version of it...then he went and did things like bring her muffins specifically in the effort to make her happy. And so on top of everything else she was left feeling like the biggest wad of human trash that had disciplined a puppy without even explaining what it had done wrong. For all that she knew she shouldn't think of him that way, he kept giving her worried puppy eyes and she knew he wasn't even bothered for his own sake but for  _her_  because he  _cared_. Damn it all to hell and back.   
  
Dropping the teetering, shattered shield of fakery had been her own fault because ultimately - reason and logic aside -  _she_  cared too. Sure, part of it was the nurturer in her, but it wasn't only that.

Her response to seeing blood hadn’t been skewed toward the people he had likely slaughtered before coming to bring her baked goods, but rather toward him, out of the worry that he was hurt. And if that wasn't a sign of a paradigm shift she didn't know what was.

And when he had touched her face, fingertips light at her jaw in a way that had been intimate in ways he couldn't possibly realize, her mind had spiraled to places it shouldn't as though she hadn't just spent days agonizing over that very thing. His steely eyes had been soft and earnest and in the moment it had been so easy to forget was he was. At that point she wasn't sure there was any going back. 

The things she'd told him back in the tunnel just now had been the culmination of almost three solid days of introspection forged like steel in the fires of stress and disbelief to be finally tempered by a blunt rationality. They had not been easy to come by, nor to speak, but once she'd gotten them out and hung them in the air she had felt their weight lift almost instantly. It did her good to acknowledge them, even if it meant facing up to the fact that no deed of his had been horrible enough to overshadow the horror she'd had for herself. Once again, she had been reminded that she wasn't the only one whose foundation had been shaken to the core. Nor was  _he_ the only one that had been dealing with loneliness. 

By all rights she shouldn't have been; she'd had plenty of people in her life. But since taking on Ellen's care, she had essentially cut herself off from every other real interpersonal contact. Her relationships had stretched thin and faded until they finally broke, fraying softly and quietly into the past rather than snapping abruptly loose. Only Mike had been persistent enough to stay and half of that was her own need causing her to cling to him like a barnacle to a sturdy surface. But mom had gotten too sick to do much more than trade the occasional sentence or smile between naps, and Mike didn't understand loss of the magnitude she was currently living with even only in theory. She had woken up one morning and there was...no one. She had been wading through her life; through school and work and everything else surrounded by people - and had been more alone than she was out here in the woods.

Odd, how even in the beginning, excluding the times when she was too afraid to feel anything else, she had never felt lonely here. She couldn't puzzle out why that might be since she hadn't talked about anything really profound with Jason, hadn't talked about her mom or the constant, sharp-toothed shadow of oncoming grief that had been lurking at the back of her mind for the better part of a year. Maybe it was because she knew that if she ever did he might actually understand. If anyone could empathize with the loss of a parental anchor, it would be him. But it was more than that. 

There was something about his company that was so simple, so effortless. Normally it required effort. Interaction was always a performance and thereby draining, even if the result was pleasant. With Jason she could just...be, and that was enough. She didn't have to speak, didn't have to perform. In fact, he could tell very clearly when she was doing so and he didn't like it. That was why he'd persisted, asking with gestures and pointed looks. It had been for her own comfort that she pretended, not his, because it was bad enough to be physically attracted to him, but it was another thing entirely to find herself connecting to a mass murderer on a level that made her entire two-and-a-half year relationship with Mike feel like a farce. And a pathetic one at that.

Even now in the cool dark, she balked at the thought. She wasn't ready for that truth, truth though it might have been. 

Jason's hand skimmed her elbow, drawing her attention in order to indicate that the path they were on was starting to narrow and to lead them up an incline before moving ahead. It had become almost habit again to flinch away, and while she hadn't this time she did find herself rubbing almost self-consciously at her chin where his fingers had grazed skin some time ago, amazed by how he could instill the sentiment of asking permission into touch. 

In normal circumstances, she might have snapped at a man that did something similar, irritated by the high-handed effort to make her look at him. But Jason hadn't forced her to do anything. He had only used his hands because he couldn't simply ask her to look at him. The touch itself had been a literal nonverbal  _please_. She had known that, even in the moment. Yet everything in her had been shaped to view a touch of that kind as something else, something more, and when combined with that gentle concern turning his irises warm she hadn't been able to interpret it as anything but affection. For a quick, quavering moment she had thought...but no. 

For the most part she was confidently self-dependent and self-assured, but sometimes she wanted to be taken care of for a change; to be cradled and looked after and treated like something precious. Deep down she was a colossal sap, and therein lay her biggest problem. Jason naturally seemed to gravitate toward checking all these boxes, just not for the motives she had in mind whenever such fantasies took hold. And while logically she both knew and accepted this, ever since her last attempt to run she kept catching herself leaning into it as though he were just like any other boy she'd developed an interest in. 

But if he felt affection for her it was only because she was the closest thing he'd had to a friend since he was a boy. That was all. He didn't see her as a woman. He saw her as female and therefore not exactly like himself, but registered nothing beyond the simplest acknowledgement of physical differences. He wouldn't know what those physical differences meant, though. Would he? She supposed she couldn't know for sure unless she asked - which was something she absolutely  _would not_  do.

It didn't matter anyway. Whatever the delicate, traitorous little flutter in her stomach might have told her - the way it ever faithfully did in the wake of a new crush - he was about as likely to see her as something sexual as he was to dance a jig in his underwear. So not at all. In that she was alone, and would remain as such.

She trailed at a distance behind Jason as he scaled the shallow incline, every once in a while catching the ghostly white flash of his mask when he glanced back at her; not, she recognized, for any fear she might vanish, but in case she stumbled or indicated any difficulty. Every time she saw it, something throbbed in her chest like a fresh wound. She had been acting like a fucking crazy person lately - a mess of mixed signals and conflicting messages, one day fine the next near catatonic. But he still kept doing what he could to ensure she was ok. 

She wasn't really ok, but that wasn't due to any lack of pains taken on his part.  
  
Almost as soon as her legs started to become less than enthusiastic about the steady incline, the ground evened out beneath her. Jason had come to a stop up ahead and was waiting for her. She quickened her pace, lengthening her stride to catch up, only for her feet to come to a stiff, jerky halt before she closed the final few feet between them. 

They had come to the lip of a shallow bluff overlooking the lake. The twilit firs had opened up around them, revealing the scorched summer sun as it began to sink behind the tree-fringed horizon. Swaths of violet and rich indigo spread downward like a swelling bruise as the darker tones gradually bled into fiery pink and orange, the shades blending in the runny, artfully smeared way of watercolor paints. 

Whitney felt her breath catch in her throat, a soft squeezing pressure at her diaphragm preceding a sudden rush of emotion it took her a minute to quantify. Jason had turned back to her, and though he was backlit and she couldn't make out even the mask, there was something about his posture that was eagerness and latent energy.

Slowly she walked the rest of the way to him, and the closer she came the harder it seemed to become to breathe. She had to be wrong. It couldn't be that he had...   
  
But he had.

She knew he had. She could feel it in the weight of his gaze upon her face, the sense of stillness he radiated - of anticipation - waiting for her reaction. He had brought her out here to see the sunset. 

Her throat locked, a spasm in her lungs dangerously close to becoming a sob, and she forced it down on a hard swallow. She didn't remember the last time someone had done something for her just because, purely for the sake of a smile. There had been plenty of words, plenty of condolences and sympathies, plenty of offered comforts both empty and full - there had been offers of financial support, distractions and tasks and promises. But no one had taken her to go look at something pretty just for a little while because she wasn't feeling like herself. No one had thought to, or known to, and she hadn't felt like herself in years...with the exception of these little moments with him.  
  
Wordless, she looked at him. He still angled his head sometimes specifically to use his left eye, and she couldn't determine whether it was habitual or because the right was truly weaker. He did so then, and she could see the question, the hopeful tenderness.

Did she like it? Was she a little better? 

She thought back to what she had told him, that she felt as though looking into herself felt like looking in a mirror and seeing someone else’s eyes or nose or cheekbones, and how he had nodded. She had seen the recognition in his eyes, the empathy, and understood that yeah, he  _did_  understand it. He understood exactly, because he’d undergone the same uncomfortable reformation of self – not when he’d chosen not to kill her, but afterwards, when the realities of that decision had fully struck him. Eventually he had made his peace with it, and that he would choose to risk the comfortable normalcy he had created for himself for  _her_ …it meant a hell of a lot.

Emotion surged. Her chin trembled just as it would have before she subsided into an ugly-sobbing mess of snot and tears. But she had cried so much lately that it seemed her tear ducts had either exhausted themselves of the supplies it took to produce tears or they had simply shut down in protest of the abuse. In the end she was biting down on the inside of her cheek purely out of habit rather than out of the true belief that she was about to start bawling. Even still her face gave her away - the skewed mouth or too-wide eyes, or the expression of raw, dumb stupefaction - because the hopeful levity behind the eye-slots of Jason's mask faltered, which really only made things worse. Her own family hadn't been so attuned to her emotional state, and here someone just a few steps above being a virtual stranger could tell simply by the most minute of alterations in expression. 

Fuck it.

So she was a sick, twisted person. So she was morbid and possibly deranged. Who cared what anyone might think of her - who was here to judge? Who  _could_ judge, really, except someone else in her precise situation, detail for detail? Nothing would ever come of it, and she couldn't keep punishing him just because she responded to certain things in certain ways, couldn't keep punishing herself for doing so. It wouldn't change anything, and it wouldn't make it any easier to bear. And if that made her some variation of crazy, then fine. 

Just... _fuck it._

"It's beautiful," she whispered, and while she made no direct reference to her state of being, she must have given some silent signal.

He nodded once, in agreement and acknowledgement, before turning his face back to the view. After a moment wherein which she took a breath that rattled rather like a sob in her chest, she followed suit.

The tiny black shapes of bats darted about them like spastic nighttime birds just as they had that first night. Amanda had vehemently  _not_  been a fan of them she recalled as she tipped her chin to watch the frenetic movements. Just as with rats, people tended not to like them, viewing them as diseased or malicious when they were neither. She supposed she was simply drawn to misunderstood, scary-looking things...and _that_  was a poetically fitting thought. Except Jason wasn't misunderstood at all, really; he was perceived precisely how he wanted to be, exactly how he saw himself in relation to other people. Aside, it seemed, from her. 

"Do you ever get lonely out here by yourself?"

She hadn't really intended to ask it: the question seemed to have been pulled from her, as though the solitude around her had reached down her throat to extract it. The world seemed to yawn wider in the night hours as if the darkness erased the separation between earth and sky until they seemed as one, and therefore all the more expansive because of it. With that expansiveness, this little patch of the universe felt that much tinier. As did she.  
  
His shrug was more felt than seen, a rise and fall of one great shoulder that whispered against her arm - sleeve to sleeve. Whitney was abruptly aware of how close they stood and when the thought neglected to bother her, she just as abruptly dismissed it. If it didn't bother him, it didn't bother her.

She interpreted the shrug as a neutral response, a statement of sometimes. He had likely grown up rather accustomed to being alone, likely missing his mother specifically more than the concept of company in general. Still, she couldn't help but imagine that he must have at least wanted a friend once. The inclination he'd shown toward communication, and to humor, were not markers of an individual suited to complete isolation, and the way he had taken to treating her more like a friend than a captive implied the same. Maybe he had stopped recognizing it as loneliness, or maybe after everything had happened the ability to feel such an emotion had just him for a while, burned away by the trauma. Maybe Jason was an introvert too.

"Yeah," she said softly, "I get it. Thank you, by the way, for bringing me out here." And purely because she knew he would have asked if he were capable: “I feel a lot better.”

Though she wasn’t looking at him to see the reaction to these words, she could almost feel the coil of uncertain tension he had been carrying around all night loosen. 

They stayed that way until the horizon of trees swallowed the sun and only the faded remnants of its brilliance remained. Again Whitney was reminded of how much darker it was out in the wilds than it ever got closer to a city, without all the artificial lights to pollute it. Here the sky ceased to be an endless swath of darkness flat as matte paint on a canvas and became instead a glittering, intricately textured space with the depth of a universe. 

At some point, when the last lingering warmth started to ebb closer to coolness, they made the silent agreement to head back; and the sky was so bright and thick with stars that it was almost possible to traverse the spaces where the tree cover was sparser with only their brilliance for light. She almost walked into a tree twice before Jason seemed to accept that she wasn’t going to stop goggling at the stupid sky, and finally he took hold of her arm to steer her clear of potential concussions. 

His hand was sure where it cupped her elbow, the palm textured with callus and scars she couldn’t make out in the dark. A killer’s hands - no,  _working_  hands - careful not to squeeze but only brace and gently guide. It was somewhat distracting to have it there, though mostly because the warmth of him automatically drew her focus to how much chillier it had gotten now that the sun was down. 

Her belly was starting to complain, taking on the gnawing sensation with which it responded to emptiness. She hadn't really managed more than a couple swallows of her dinner, and half a muffin. Which, while delicious, hadn't had the capacity to be truly filling, and had been stolen from some poor neighbor likely now scared out of their wits.

Oh well. Better the sacrifice of baked goods than blood or a life.

If it were her, she would have gladly left out bread and wire and whatever else might be in demand just as the superstitious in old Ireland had left out milk for fairies. Maybe if she asked nicely he might consider re-heating her soup.

She pondered that for a moment before deciding to woman up and ask. The question had been a recurrent chirp at the back of her mind almost since the beginning, but was even more relevant now that had more factual reason behind her suspicion that he might not be all human anymore (reason and fact be damned). 

"Do you eat?" Jason paused for half a step so she could move up beside him rather than trailing a bit behind. She could just make out his shrug in the dark. "Is that a no, or a sometimes?"

He held up his right hand, showing her two fingers. The second answer, or so she guessed.    
  
"Because you have to or because you want to?"

He hesitated, and then held up one finger, but the delay had been long enough to indicate uncertainty.  
  
"Not really sure?" A nod. "But you can. That answers my question, I think. You should try some muffin when we get back. They're a little cakier than I like my muffins, but no way I'd ever turn down anything with blueberries."  
  
A hand flew to his face, fingers splayed across the mask as though to hold it to his face. He dropped it almost instantly, identifying the movement as involuntary, reflexive in nature. She could no longer see his eyes to tell for sure, but everything about the language of that reflex screamed fear, screamed  _shame_. 

Immediately she felt like the worst kind of asshole. Eating required freeing the mouth, which would require at least moving, if not completely  _re_ moving, the mask. It had become so synonymous with him - so much a part of him to her mind - that she had almost forgotten why he likely wore it in the first place. Whatever - whoever - had caused it, he had come to associate his own face with negative things. By now the mask - as with the sackcloth before it - was likely as much as comfort as it was a shield. It was his version of closing his eyes in a dark place in preference of a self-imposed darkness, a choice to be fearsome in a deliberate way rather than one he could not control.

He didn't want her to see his face because he feared she would run from it. Or, worse, she would ridicule him for it. She had never seen him show anything like fear, but seeing it made him no more or less than he had been. It only made her sad.

In that moment she very much wanted to find whoever had bullied and more than likely tormented him, taking that inherent sweetness and desperate yearning for a friend and warping it this way. Wanted to find them and slam their heads into a wall until they saw God. Proving the fact that just because she didn't administer harm didn't mean she was above wishing it on others anyway. Her sense of justice was strong and sharp enough to lean more into the realm of vengeance. Apparently, they had that in common. He just _acted_ on his.

"I didn't mean--not eat in front of me, just...take it for later, maybe. If you wanted."  

He nodded, perhaps a little too quickly, and she thought he had probably understood that to begin with. Still, reflex was reflex: she understood that well enough.

Deliberately she changed the subject.

"You know what," she said, smoothing over the rough patch with a dose of levity and plain fact. "I  _do_  have to pee." 

After a long moment of quiet, she heard the rough, husky exhalation she knew was a laugh. 

~*~

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! Jason was being a bit of a problem child. 
> 
> This chapter is me at my best: Queen of Angst. It isn't quite as long as I wanted it to be...but I think it'll work out for the best in the end for a number of reasons. I'm going to stop typing now for fear I second-guess myself and decide not to post it. So until next time!!
> 
> One last thing though: thank you so, so much to everyone for the comments and the kudos and for being so goddamn lovely.


	11. Follow Me Down

* * *

 

 

**Day 27**

"And then they use maggots to eat away the dead flesh so the surrounding tissue doesn't become necrotic too, because maggots only eat the dead stuff. Gross, right?"

They were sitting in the grass, shaded by the thick branches of a great fir. Half an hour ago Jason had been listening to her read while he mass constructed new snare loops to have ready for later use. Normally when her voice got tired, she took a nap, especially mid-afternoon when the day was at its hottest, often requesting to go back to the relatively cooler shelter of the tunnels. But today had been different. She had set the book down, stretched, watched him for a moment or two, then took up wire and cutters and proceeded to help.

At some point – via some progression he couldn’t fully recall – they'd gone from making snares to him teaching her how to tie increasingly more complicated knots. The legitimacy of said knots was somewhat questionable, as he had learned most of them via a combination of spending hours experimenting with rope and sheer necessity. She had the benefit of small hands, which made the complex weaving and looping patterns easier to manage, but lacked the experience that made it genuinely easy. Still, she managed well enough to fill the time she wasn't concentrating too hard with idle talk about what she termed  _nasty medical stuff._  

She didn't appear very put off by the one-sided nature of the conversation, for which he was grateful. He liked hearing her talk, and it was a relief that his lack of reciprocation didn't make her think he wanted silence. Far from it. While the nuances of what she described sometimes escaped him, he could follow about as well as she could follow his wordless knot-tying demonstration: with some skips and stalls along the way.

He smiled, heartily amused. Gross or no, Whitney's tone was all delighted fascination. There was no disgust to be heard, and for all that her nose had wrinkled as if she smelled something as rotten as the subject matter, her eyes glittered with more of the same. The subjects of her stories didn't bother  _him_  at all – even the ones which featured large needles being stuck in distinctly unpleasant places. He was familiar enough with death to be more than a little desensitized even to the idea of quite a lot of things. Death itself was dirty and foul, and smelled of far worse than just blood or bile.

In spite of her somewhat deliciously horrified tones, she didn't seem overly disturbed either, with the singular exception of something called a  _sucking chest wound_ , at the mention of which she actually dry-heaved before choking on her own snort of laughter – evidently amused by her own visceral revulsion. Clearly there was a part of her that enjoyed being a little bit disgusted. It was not something he would have imagined of her in the beginning. Now, though, it seemed right.

"So...wait."

Whitney undid the loop she had just made, staring down at the length of twine held between her hands as though willing it to submit. There was a deep furrow between her dark brows – a crease which Jason felt the unusual urge to smooth out with the pad of a finger.

"Around and under," she muttered under her breath, glancing between the half-tied knot Jason held cupped in an open palm as he waited for her to catch up.

After a moment he took pity on her and undid the last tuck he'd done to show her a second time, slowly, and a screechy " _aha!"_  burst from her mouth. She copied the tuck and pulled the loose end, cinching the knot tight. It was, perhaps, a little _too_  tight, but for this particular knot too tight was better than too loose, and she was beaming as though she'd just accomplished a borderline herculean task. 

She had been in an extraordinarily good mood all day; something which he relegated to the new, and likely far cooler, clothes she had changed into that morning. 

As he'd suspected, most of the food liberated from the would-be campers had been, while edible, not entirely  _food_ , per-say, and while she had kept a few things most had been rejected. The clothes, however, had been a definite win. She had been incredibly pleased by the odd wire-and-elastic contraption, her half-relieved glee instilling the reflective happiness in himself that he had decided to cease questioning, and she had become increasingly more enthusiastic as she'd rifled through the duffle's contents to choose a replacement for the long-sleeved flannel. 

The new shirt – if that was still the right name – had no sleeves beyond the straps that cut white lines across her bare shoulders. It had been oddly distracting at first to see so much skin. Odd since there was nothing inherently interesting about skin specifically; he'd seen plenty of it, and had plenty of his own. He had seen far more than a few female bodies far less covered in the past and hadn't so much as blinked. Yet he had repeatedly found his attention wandering to these newly visible places, studying the graceful transition from neck to shoulder where her hair fell, the collarbones arching below the hollow of her throat, the expanse of upper back, the soft shadow which halved her chest. 

And it wasn't only the skin. The denim pants she'd donned were not unlike the ones she had worn in the beginning, but they were tighter, thinner, and clung. The curving slopes and contours of the shape previously hidden away by the folds of baggy clothes were no longer so, and while before he hadn't taken much notice beyond her tangible existence he was infinitely more aware now of the way the liberated clothes fit her.

Not for anything could he put together why, only that he felt like the refrigerator magnets he'd once played with – drawn by some unavoidable cosmic force that yanked his eyes to her. And every time he caught himself doing so he would feel a strange sense of unease prickling at the back of his consciousness that didn't match the compulsion he had to look again. If he were honest with himself, it was more than a little disturbing.

Not that he  _was_ , in fact, honest with himself.

Shifting the knotted twine to one hand, she held up the other, arm bent at the elbow in a ninety-degree angle with her palm flat and facing him. Her eyes were bright with the little victory, shining green-gold in the flecks of afternoon light that filtered through the shade.

She was looking at him expectantly. Suddenly he understood there was a significance to the raised hand that he was intended to understand and respond to. There was a small spark of recognition: a memory buried deep in his brain that he couldn't quite access. Tentatively he raised his hand to mimic hers and paused, not fully remembering what to do with it.

Whitney nodded encouragement. "Yup, and now we slap one another's palms—like this." 

She lightly tapped the flat of her hand against his and the memory unearthed itself in entirety. Yes, he remembered the gesture, remembered seeing it done, but never having done it himself, and there was a small, childish part of him that felt as though he were finally completing a rite of passage of sorts.

He felt the smile pull at his skewed mouth as she retracted her hand and said, "Now again, together this time," and he mimicked her movement, gently touching palms with her. It wasn't quite a  _slap_ , as she'd deemed it, but it seemed to suit her need to celebrate her victory over the knot, for she shot him a grin that seared like pure sunlight before dropping her hand to her lap. 

Unbidden his thoughts spiraled back to that morning during her exploration of the clothes and the rat that had been settled there at her lap, curled up in a be-tailed ball. It had frequently interrupted her breakfast with insistent begging for snacks. Begging Whitney had staved off with bits of the oat cereal discovered amid the bag of food. She'd snapped good-naturedly at it every time, dubbing it a pest and herself a "crazy cat lady," although he had no idea what that meant. He only really maintained the rough idea of what a cat looked like, recollected from an old picture book when he'd been learning – or failing to learn – how to read. He remembered they said  _meow_ and not much else. A rat was definitely not the same thing, of that he was certain.

Still, in spite of her grousing she had fed it more than she needed to and didn't so much as bat an eye when it curled up there for a nap. Seeing her interact thusly with the little creatures did something unusual to his insides: they seemed to soften within the confines of flesh and bone like butter left out on a summer day, warm and malleable in ways no longer entirely alien, but still bizarre. 

He had thought often about her question of loneliness over the past few days, turning it over in his mind like a stone, testing the edges, the smooth surfaces, the nicks and divots. He could recall having been lonely before, the yawning hollowness that he'd thought might swallow him from the inside out, but after...after there had been only pain. Only anger. Only an unending cycle of exhaustion. 

He had thought about it so much that he had dreamed last night. Of his first kill: the girl from the lakeside. The survivor.

It had been the first and only time he'd left the grounds and the area immediately surrounding them, and then only to silence the compulsive need to see the thing finished. The pull had been too strong to fight; the demand for justice – for balance – clamoring so raucously inside his head that eventually he could no longer think for the noise in his ears.

He didn’t know how he’d managed to find her. He shouldn’t have been able to, he had no knowledge how tracking was done without physical tracks to follow – of which there had been none. It had been over a year, she had left by car, lived more than several cities away. It had been a force beyond his own making. His feet had simply carried him to where she was, guiding him like the weight of his mother's hand on his shoulder pressing him on. The pitch of his rage spiraling higher and louder until the very second he had taken hold of the girl’s skull and shoved the ice pick through the thin layer of bone at the temple to bury it deep within her brain.  Only then had the constant wailing in his head gone quiet.

It had occurred to him when leaving that he might have been seen, that something bad might have come from the perhaps ill-advised quest for vengeance. But some things were worth the price of the consequences. After that point, he didn’t remember feeling anything quite like the gnawing, hungry solitude of his childhood. Oh, he missed his mother, but he was no longer sure what he missed wasn't simply the presence of someone who knew what to do, someone to give him direction, a purpose beside the one of killing.

Sometimes it was when he missed her the most that he was also at his weariest. Sometimes to the point that he felt scraped empty and hollow, clinging to the last shreds of her he could find amid the cycle of violence and simultaneously wishing that he could just...stop. Normally he refused to tolerate these moments for long. Such a wish felt like disloyalty of a kind that discomforted him, because without the killing it would mean she was truly gone, and without even that poor, pitiful link to her, what point was there in existing?

Jason didn't have the schooling to understand the premise of existentialist thought, but he steered away from it instinctively nonetheless; knowing that the road of those particular thoughts led to places he couldn't go, if not the specific reasons why. For one, he had no way to know if he could die anymore, that if he were to stab or slice or cleave himself apart if he wouldn't simply mend as he always seemed to. He had no way to know if were to hurl himself back into the lake from which he'd been reborn if he could still drown, and that, of all possibilities, he flatly would not try. And if he could not _end_ , then...he supposed he must go on doing as he always had, carrying on the cycle of vengeance for the rest of eternity. 

Yet just now, sitting in the grass at the base of the tree with the remembered imprint of her hand small and slender against his as vivid as though it rested there still, he had the sense of some old, scabbed-over wrong made inexplicably right.

He had never had a pet growing up, nor siblings, or anything else that required caretaking. Whitney was neither, of course, but with her had come the purpose of keeping something alive and well, and if he were honest with himself – which in this case he was – the purpose in maintaining life and fostering contentment was a far more engaging one than the opposite. Not to mention pleasant. He hadn't really considered before, but maybe a part of him hadn't thought he deserved to find pleasant things within existence any more, or at least that pleasant things no longer had a place within said existence – as though, since he was no longer truly  _alive_ , his state of being no longer revolved around joy or peace. Whether or not that had been true or just belated analysis, it no longer _felt_ true. 

Whitney bent slightly at the hips, undoing the knots in the piece of twine before she returned it to the pile of supplies. It brought her ever slightly closer to him and he caught the scent of her: citrus and soap, the salt of sweat, and beneath that something like the earth after it rained. Indescribable, but soft and singularly nice. 

“I wish you could tell me about your life,” she lamented as she straightened, shoving loose waves of hair back from her face. “I have so many questions. Maybe not about the murder, though."

Her lips curved faintly, a tiny, almost-smile, and warmth curled beneath his skin. He didn't know what it was, but when she did that it made something swoop in his chest like a diving bird, deep down beneath the ribs. He might have thought he was ill, though it would have been the first time since his waking on the shore of the lake, evidently not drowned.

He had never seen anything quite the same shade of pink as Whitney’s mouth, no flower or fruit or anything in nature. He liked that the color was a thing uniquely hers. He rather liked her mouth, come to think of it. It seemed a strange thing to like, after all a mouth was a mouth, wasn't it? It had a function – several functions for those with voice – and that was all. But perhaps that was an over-simplification, after all he could tell by the set of a trespasser's mouth whether they had fully realized their circumstances or if they still thought they were the subject of a prank. Whitney's mouth was no less a tool with which to gauge expression and he utilized it as such: studying the set of it, the soft lines which bracketed it which she smiled, the precise curve of her lower lip and the subtle indentation at its center. 

It took him a full second to realize there had been no censure in her voice, but rather humor. Dry, yes, but humor all the same. He blinked, wondering at what point the subject of murder had ceased to be one to avoid at all cost. 

At some point she had picked up the jar of water she had taken to toting around whenever they went on outdoor excursions, unscrewing the metal lid and cradling it between her hands while she studied him. 

She looked at him that way now sometimes, with a peculiar sense of anticipation, as though she expected him, or wanted him, to do something. He didn't know what it was, and she was never forthcoming about explaining, both of which made his stomach pitch with equal parts agitation and unease – fretting, perhaps unnecessarily, that he was doing something wrong. He was starting to wonder whether it wasn't his own ignorance that upset him more than what might or might not be wrong. Whatever it was, he had the sneaking suspicion that it was so completely outside his realm of comprehension that he didn't know if he would have asked even if he could. Though he did rather desperately want to know. 

Lifting the jar to her lips, Whitney averted her gaze and the odd expression smoothed away just as it always did, though his anxiousness lingered.

"Mm—" She made a noise around her mouthful of water, her throat bobbing rapidly with her swallow. "You know, you might not be able to answer complicated questions, but I could ask closed ones. Yes or no questions. Right?" 

Jason blinked, completely sidelined. What had she been talking about? His life. She wanted to ask him about his...life? What on earth for? He nodded somewhat automatically, still feeling a little slow to comprehend as though the space between his brain and skull had become stuffed full of cotton fluff. 

"You don't have to answer anything you don't want you. Or you can completely ignore me, that's fine too."

He exhaled sharply through his nose, mocking offense at her suggestion that he ignore her, and caught the flash of her smile as she returned the lid to her water jar.

"Ok, then." 

Leaning back on her elbows, Whitney stretched her legs out in front of her so that her toes just breached the line of shade. 

Almost the instant they had settled there she had removed her shoes and socks. The temperature just seemed to keep climbing with each passing day, and this was by far the hottest yet. Perspiration had added a soft, allover gleam to her skin and darkened the fabric at the small of her back, gathered at her hairline. He was feeling rather warm again too, now that he considered it – not quite stifling, and not sweating, but mildly uncomfortable. Though not enough to act on.

"Did you always live here?" 

He blinked again, feeling his brow lift with his surprise. Of all the things he'd expected her to ask, that hadn't been one of them...not that he really knew what he should have expected. He had no what to know what things might or might not peak her interest. "The house was yours, right?" she added when he didn't answer right away, "you lived there with your mom?"

He was halfway through a nod when he lifted a hand to belay it. Holding up a finger, he indicated:  _first question_. Then he shook his head.

"No, you didn't always live here," she guessed, and he nodded, holding up two fingers. 

 _Second question._ Another nod, this time with conviction behind it.

"Got it. Were you little when you moved? Do you remember it?"

For a moment, he considered, casting his thoughts back in time to when they had come to the camp. He hadn't been little, not the way she meant. Calculating, he held up his hand again, showing her four fingers.

"You were four years old? Or, you were here for four years before...before." 

She let the question drift, sensitive to the subject of the deaths that had turned the once active camp into a ghost town. Which he appreciated. Neither of them needed it any more defined than that.

He indicated the second answer: four years. Four summers spent in the little corner of hell while the counselors and other children alike made it brutally clear that he was not like them and  _not_ welcome. Not that that had stopped him from trying anyway. He had always been persistent that way, or maybe overly optimistic was the better description – for he had maintained a chokehold on the hope that maybe tomorrow he might convince someone that he would make a good friend. Just  _one_  someone. It would have been more than enough. The optimism had not managed to overcome what had happened, though. Even the hardiest of plants could only take so much abuse before they simply withered.

Whitney's chin dipped slightly with her nod, seeming to read the negative slant to the answer. He realized the muscles in his shoulders had coiled reflexively and he rolled them back, coaxing them to relax.

"Was it weird living at a summer camp?" she asked then, only to amend, "I guess it's hard to know if something's weird when it's your normal. Let's change that question to: did you like living at a summer camp?" 

His immediate response came almost without his will to drive it, his head jerking sharply from side to side. Then he stilled. It hadn't been all bad. Certainly the summers had been exercises in emotional endurance, but there had been good things too. He could just recall what it had been like to live in a neighborhood: all the cement and chain link fencing, the tiny cramped yard with grass that never seemed to be any less than seventy percent brown at any given time. After the move he'd had the run of the woods with all the trees he could possibly climb and not a square foot of cement in sight aside from the camp structures. He amended the vehement negative answer by creating a so-so motion with his hand, and Whitney gave a small smile. "I think all kids feel that way about where they live. The grass is always greener, and all that." 

Puzzled, he felt his head tilt slightly to one side, which Whitney mirrored a split second later, tilting her own head the same way. Another little crease formed between her brows. Once again he felt the compulsion to smooth it away.

"You don't know that phrase? The grass is always greener on the other side? It means we always tend to want what we don't have."

Well that, as he could attest, was absolutely true.

Whitney stifled a yawn behind a hand and shook her head rapidly as if to clear it. "Sorry. I'm not bored,” she quickly explained, “The heat makes me sleepy." He blinked, somewhat bewildered. Did yawning happen with boredom as well as being tired? Fascinating. 

"What did you...no, sorry. Did you go to school?" 

He answered with a shrug, only somewhat paying attention. Her feet were moving, toes flexing and curling gently as if on absentminded habit as if she didn't even realize she was doing it. Such  _tiny_  toes. Again, he had seen plenty of feet before – people seemed almost instinctively inclined to shuck their shoes like a snake its skin upon arriving to the lake grounds in the summer. 

His eyes followed the fine bones along the arch of her ankles to where muscle curved at the back of each calf. She had very long legs, he noticed. Long and sleek. He'd seen her run, and even when hindered by bound hands and heavy chain she had been a strong runner. He kept likening her to a deer in his mind, or a bird, all russet and white, swift and light and graceful.

The feeling of being smothered in his coat increased, and he had the creeping feeling that he was doing something he should not. He averted his gaze to the grass in front of him, the knotted mess of twine that lay there, brow creasing with his frown. 

He didn’t like this feeling, this tangle of confusion and heat that made his chest feel tight and foreign. It felt like...like he was changing. 

Well, of course he was changing, that had been unavoidable from the start. The problem wasn't that there was change, but that the change didn't _stop_ – it just kept building on itself, reminding him of what Whitney had said before. 

_"I don't recognize parts of myself right now."_

He felt her eyes on him, and knew without seeing it that she was looking it him in that wistful, almost-sad way that made his stomach turn over like a car engine in a spluttering attempt to start. It was as if she was staring right through his clothing, through skin and flesh and bones into the places that were no longer hollow as he had come to believe they were. His fingers curled into the grass, combating the sudden clawing, urgent need to get away from her – away from her pale, pretty face and green-flecked eyes that saw far too much. The urge to run, to flee from something dangerous.

There was something very wrong with him. He was  _not_  prey, and  _she_  was not a threat. But he didn't fully believe it, because there was a part of him - a small, whisper-thin part way, deep down – that was very much afraid of this small slip of a girl. It was as if she was a force that was pulling him in...although in to what, exactly?

"How about...did you do things for fun?" Whitney's voice broke through the cloud of confusion in his head. "Like sports? For instance, I was on my high school's track team." 

His eyes flicked to her face, the frown in them redirecting. It was better, easier, to direct the confusion into her statement than whatever was going on in his head. 

"Competitive running," she explained, which really did explain some things. "Well, sort of, but not really—I wasn't that good." She propped her chin on her shoulder as she clarified, "did you do anything like that?"

It took Jason about ten seconds to decide how to answer, more than half of which had been devoted purely to awe over the unexpected similarity they now shared.

Gathering up the twine and other materials, he shoved them back into his pockets, gesturing as he did for her to get up. Her expression turned to one of mild puzzlement, but she shoved her feet back into her shoes and followed anyway.

He couldn't tell her, but he could _show_ her.

*

The interior of the house was even shoddier than she remembered. 

The door they used opened into the kitchen, where the paint upon the walls peeled up in strips like bark from a birch tree and the cheap linoleum bubbled and curled at the corners where moisture had seeped underneath. Water stains created patterns on the ceiling. Tree limbs had burst right through one wall, the foundation underneath likely suffering damage from roots. Every flat surface was covered in clutter. Dishes and opened, empty cans, spilled food too old now to even have any smell beyond the general odor of uncleanliness, unopened mail, bits of foliage dry and one poke away from becoming dust.

It was old mess, untouched, no doubt since it had been left by the previous owner’s descent into grief-fueled madness.

_“What if some homeless person lives here?”_

They had been the first words out of her mouth upon setting foot through the bent screen and finding herself inside the room that had looked like the ghost-story copy of a cute 1960s kitchen. She had said it mainly as an attempt to convince Mike to leave well enough alone, not because she legitimately thought it might be true. Or, so she’d thought at the time. Maybe a part of her had known someone was there with them – some deep-buried instinct that people no longer tended to pay attention to now that they had molded themselves around the arrogant assumption that they were the top of the food chain. Though that possibility was a little pointless now. The fact that she’d said it at all, regardless of reason, sat like bad food in her stomach sometimes, now that she knew more of what had happened between the rotting walls.

She hadn’t paid much attention to the house itself after that first night, when she’d been an unwelcome – and unknowingly rude – intruder. At first the reason had been terror, and when the terror had passed through resignation and acceptance she simply hadn’t had much reason to look when it served only as the means of passage from outside to the tunnels. Except for the bathroom. The trapdoor was located directly outside the bathroom door, and she hadn’t been able to look too closely inside for fear of seeing the hole in the floor and remembering what had caused it.

The difference between then and now was almost profound.

As she followed Jason through the kitchen and into the dark hall, she realized the creepy abandoned house out in the dark woods had stopped feeling like a monster. It was run down and falling apart, tracked with dirt and spots of mildew, being slowly, steadfastly reclaimed by nature; but it was no longer the scary place spawned from her horror movie nightmares. It was just a neglected house. No more, no less.

The carpet under her feet was threadbare almost the point of nonexistence, and every so often she thought she caught the smell of something burnt when she walked on it as though it had been scorched. They passed the living room to the left, and she remembered the little upright piano inside it, leaning to one side and half its keys broken. She had found the whistles in there – a group of them so out of place that their presence alone had felt freaky and wrong. She wondered now if they hadn’t belonged to that first group of counselors, if Mrs. Voorhees hadn’t returned to the house with each kill to hang up her trophies. Or if Jason had found them on her body and done it for her.

It was also the room where they had found the jewelry box.

Her hand rose at the memory of the faded pink satin, fingers curling beneath the locket suddenly heavy at her throat.

“Jason--”

He stopped, turning to her with that subtle air of question he had a knack for producing, and she felt her conviction momentarily fail her.

“Do you…do you want this back?”

She indicated the jewelry cupped in her palm. It had begun to feel at home there around her neck, but she could never really forget why it was there, or where it had come from.

She knew she had already apologized for taking it, and for the part she had played in desecrating the mausoleum his childhood home had become, but an apology didn't feel like enough. Even if to his eyes she had paid her debt, or even if she never could, surely he would want the necklace returned to its rightful place.

Yet as she watched, frown lines formed around his eyes. Even in the dark it was evident. He looked...puzzled, as though he couldn’t understand why she would ask him such a thing. When he shook his head he did so slowly, as though he wasn't sure he was answering the question he thought he was. "Are you sure? It was your mother's, wasn't it?"

He nodded, the gesture surer than its predecessor.

"But--"

Before she could fully form her rebuttal, he had cut her off, laying the tips of his fingers across her mouth in a very clear request for her to shush. She could feel the callus lining them, rough, but not unpleasant, and the heat of her own breath reflected back at her, and promptly shut up.

His hand dropped to the locket, fingers brushing hers as he pressed them closed around the oval pendant, and while she could understand the command of _keep it_ , especially where the repentant nature of the locket's being there in the first place was concerned, the neutral softness in what she could make out of his expression didn't seem to match. It was like he was refusing her attempts to give back a gift, not insisting she keep the symbol of her wrongs in place. 

Before she could attempt pressing again he’d turned back, ducking his head to pass through the open doorway of one of the rooms. Forced to follow or be left in the hall, Whitney stepped across the threshold, her eyes lifting to peer inside.

Her entire body rattled with the force of the hitch in her pulse.

It was the bedroom; the one that had so obviously belonged to a child. The one, she understood now, had once been his.

The windows were still open, gauzy white curtains wafting gently with each faint whisper of air, yet this was the only thing that felt unchanged. One of the dresser drawers had been left askew, offering a peek at the clothes folded in neat layers within, and a pair of sneakers had been left at the end of the twin bed, the white toes scuffed and dirt-smeared, the fire-engine red canvas dulled by dust. Toys, old long before they had come to live there, chipped and well-loved and a little bedraggled. Her eyes traveled over the room, over little details that had seemed so sinister before, and she felt none of the menace, none of the thick, oppressive anger. She just felt overwhelmingly sad.

Jason had taken an immediate left, crossing to the corner where a squat little bookshelf stood. Picture books and light chapter books littered the shelves, interspersed by tiny toy cars and animal figurines, as though the scene of some epic saga of play had been interrupted before its finale. But this wasn't what she was meant see.

At the forefront of the topmost shelf stood the trophies; a neat little row of them, dust-choked and festooned with cobwebs, and all – every single one of them – for archery. 

"Oh, how cool," she murmured, bending down to get a closer look and blowing gently to dislodge some of the grime coating the name plates. They were just cheap summer camp awards, listing the date and not much else, but there were at least ten of them, indicating he must have won at least two competitions every year. 

She had formulated the question based on what she knew of him, assuming he had been more outdoorsy as a kid than others might have been. Learning difficulties aside, he simply didn't strike her as having been the kind to while away inside if he had another option. Archery actually made a lot of sense. It was a solitary sport, something he could practice and excel at alone, and would explain at least some of how he had come to be such an efficient killer. He would have perfected his sense of aim long before he would have had to rely on it.

She straightened, remarking: "These are all for first place." He shrugged, as if to say it was no big deal, which she refused to let stand. "You must be really good." 

Another shrug, but she thought there might be something bashful in the way his eyes dropped to the floor, and she felt a warm rush of fondness.

Something at the corner of her periphery caught her attention; a dark spot perched atop the bed's lumpy old pillow. Inexplicably she felt her feet begin to move, carrying her toward it. As soon as she drew near enough to distinguish the shape of the teddy bear she experienced a sudden jolt of deja vu.

She remembered the bear, ragged from love, remembered that when she had last looked in this room it had been sitting on the bed itself, propped against the headboard, not on the pillow. Did Jason still sleep here? The bed itself was in a state of wrinkled order, as though someone had tried to make it up without quite knowing how, yet it alone was absent the healthy layer of dust which coated the rest of the room, which suggested that he might. 

The seam along one side of the bear’s body had pulled loose, bleeding stuffing gone yellow with age, and one button eye was missing. It had the look of something handled often, and she was left wondering whether he still held it throughout the night, whether for comfort or out of habit. The thought made her heart squeeze.

Whitney reached almost without thinking before snatching back her hand as if in reaction to being bitten by a rattlesnake. She had touched enough of his things without asking already and did not need to do so again. When she looked up it was to find Jason observing her from where he stood at the end of the little bed. For a moment she worried she had crossed a line of some kind, but he appeared more curious than bothered, his posture was loose and relaxed.

"May I?" she asked, pointing to the bear.

He made an odd motion, half nodding while hunching his shoulders as if an accompanying shrug had stalled halfway through, and she took careful note of it. He didn't feel protective enough to tell her no, but she should tread gently. 

Gingerly she scooped up the plush animal, cupping a hand over the gash in its side to keep the stuffing from spilling out. Overall, it was in remarkably good shape. The fabric was a bit matted and a bit dirty, but it was neither patchy nor worn thin, and the rest of the seams were holding strong. The tear appeared to have been the result of snagging on something rather than the stitches themselves giving way.

Cradling the bear in her hands, she moved around the bed to where he waited, watching closely as she fingered the edges of the torn seam. 

"I could probably fix this," she said, before hesitating.

Maybe he wouldn't want her to. Maybe it was enough just having her touch it, let alone mauling it with a needle. Yet while she had almost expected refusal, he seemed to straighten as if perking up at the sight or smell of something good.

"If you want?"

His eyes lit up like stars. He had to be beaming behind his mask, for he was radiating hope and elation brilliant enough to be near blinding. The heart that had squeezed moments ago now ached, so full of emotion that it felt as though her rib cage might be too narrow to contain it. 

It took a little while to find the right tools with which to perform said mending job, but in the end Whitney sat under the light in her corner with what had to be the world's smallest and most practical sewing kit housed in an old cookie tin.

The thread was the heavy-duty kind made for serious business patch-jobs, which made sense considering the original owner had been the mother of a young boy who had likely been quite active and quite prone to torn clothing, and was more than adequate for fixing up a wounded teddy bear. She used a neat, tidy overhand stitch to pinch and hold the two raw edges together, routinely poking stuffing back inside. Jason hovered the entire time, crouched closer than usual and following every pass of the needle as though it were piercing through actual flesh in a show of concern that was utterly involuntary, and absolutely one of the most adorable things she'd ever seen. It seemed a shame that no one else ever would. No one else would ever know that the big bad wolf of Crystal Lake was such a puppy at heart.

"There we go," she proclaimed once finished, and snipped off the leftover thread with the tiny pair of scissors from the tin. It no longer looked quite so sad now that its insides weren't in constant peril of leaving its body, but there was still something missing.

Reaching into the duffle of clothes, she rifled about for a moment before extracting the oversized men’s plaid shirt that she’d managed to wash (sort of) in the bathroom sink. With a deft flash of scissors, she freed one of the buttons and affixed it to the empty space left by the bear's missing eye. The buttons didn't match, but not matching was a far cry from being completely lopsided, wasn't it? She offered the bear with a quiet "here,” and there was a weight to Jason’s silence as he reached to take it, an almost tentative care. Then he was cradling the toy in his great hands, a little less ragged than it had been, staring down at it with something that was disbelief and wonder and yet neither and both all at once, as if she had just returned a piece of his childhood to him – one that had been stolen away far before its time. 

His eyes rose to hers, liquid and a bit over bright, and he didn't need words. She read the gratitude there as clear as if written ink to paper or carved in stone. It had been such a small thing, a small act, but she had been alive long enough – had spent enough time looking through the lens of adulthood – to know that more often than not it was the smallest of things that tended to hold the most weight. Little kindnesses were indicators of thoughtfulness far greater than the actions themselves. While it was nowhere near exact, she knew what it was to feel like one’s childhood had gone too soon, and she knew what it was to feel the simple joy of it again just for a moment.

Smiling, Whitney put the sewing things back in the tin, her eyes lingering on the scissors. They were tiny but they were sharp as only the very best sewing scissors were, and it did not escape her in that moment that at one point she would have tried to keep them, to slip them away out of sight somewhere to use later – whether to pick a lock or gouge a hand or an eye. Nor did it escape her that that point had not been all that long ago. Her eyes lingered, but her fingers did not.

After a moment, she popped the lid firmly into place and added the kit to the steadily growing piles on and around her crate. 

Funny how quickly things could change. 

Her eyes flicked to the wall where her tallies stood in crooked rows. She was still dutifully adding one with every sunrise, but the act had become more routine than a method of maintaining sanity. There were so many of them now. But when one remembered that each mark counted for a single day, there weren't that many at all. Not quite a month. Not that much time, in the grand scheme of things, yet it felt as though she had been here for far longer. Maybe that was how time had felt in less advanced times, when the hours and what they ruled were less important than the seasons, when time wasn't spent and used like so much cold currency. Or maybe not.

There was something grounding about time lived this way. For maybe the first time since she had been little she no longer felt as though she was constantly chasing after the time she was losing as quickly as she caught it. How much of that, she wondered, was because – just like when she'd been little – she had been removed from responsibilities?

It was weird...she knew what she _should_ want: to be back home with Mom, with Mike (ignoring the fact that Mike no longer existed to be with). With her textbooks and her looming exams and all the terrifying possibilities of a future that looked more like a shapeless void of uncertainty and fear than anything else when she tried looking into it. Still, it was her life, whatever its troubles. Yet sometimes the thought of returning to it brought her within a hair's breadth of breaking out in a cold sweat.

She didn't know what she wanted anymore. Because if she could just stay in this slice of reality where time slowed down she could pretend that in some other part of the state the woman that had raised her and loved her wasn't slowly withering away. 

She knew that wasn't how time, or life, worked, just as she knew that pretending was a way of exerting control over something she had never had control over. Regardless of what the outcome might be, she could still ask to go. She could explain to Jason that she wanted to go home to her dying mother – not counting how icky and even manipulative that piece of truth might have felt coming out of her mouth. She could promise to come back, and even mean it. But it was easier to remain in a state of perceived powerlessness than it was to make another choice when all roads at the end of that choice led to watching her mom die.

Jason was still staring down at the stuffed bear in his hands, running a fingertip over the rounded crest of an ear that looked as though it had been chewed on the regular. Which was weirdly and completely endearing.

Whitney knew that the idea of repentance wasn't something that should be weighing on her. For all the missteps she may have made, at the time she hadn't known she had been trespassing, hadn't known that she was doing any more than treading ground that had seen more than its share of suffering. Whatever wrong she had done, it hadn't been done with intent or with malice. And whatever wrong she had done, he had paid her back in punishment far beyond what had been earned. Still, she was pleased that she had been able to do something – even just this small something – for a person that had seen so much of the darker parts of life. 

Where once she had merely wondered, now she knew. Kindness was the way to fixing whatever was broken in this little sliver of the world, not violence, not a show of power. 

Just simple kindness, and maybe a light dash of hope. 

*

**Day 31**

He hadn't been doing anything out of the ordinary; just sitting at the workbench cleaning the blade of the machete with mineral oil. Yet for some reason, everything about it was just…

She’d had to stop reading. They were currently about a third of the way into a murder mystery set on a train in the 1920s, very a ’la Murder on the Orient Express although with vastly different characters and – or so she suspected – a vastly different ending. It was an engaging book, and they were at a good part, but her eyes had kept straying from the page, lingering on the way his hands moved as he polished the metal using long, smooth strokes with the cloth. After several minutes spent tripping over her tongue she just gave up, because there was just no point. She had had to cover up the signs of her idiocy by downing half a jug of water when he’d looked up from his work, evidently wondering what was wrong.

She’d blamed a scratchy throat. Or allergies. She didn’t actually remember now. Just like she didn’t remember what had happened in the last couple pages she had been attempting to get through.

_Ugh._

Jason had gone back to his task, holding the blade close to his face and looking down the length of it, turning it this way and that as if looking for nicks or scratches that needed tending.

It was his hands, she thought. She’d always had a bit of a thing for nice hands, and Jason’s were, even if they were also gigantic. And it was how he used them, the care and the focus with which he treated the weapon that was almost as much a part of him as his mask was – the same care and focus with which he did pretty much everything.

Whitney was a firm believer that every teen went through a phase where they were simply too mature for all the nonsense in the world. Sometimes it lasted years, and sometimes only a couple months, but every person went through it: the time where dirty jokes were nothing but crass and gauche, and why did _everything_ have to be about _sex. God_. And then once that phase ran its course, every single person reverted to the maturity level of a twelve-year-old boy. Where they then stayed.

As far as her experience with people went, this was the way of it. She was no exception.

Everything _was_ about sex. How the hell else would babies happen as often as they did? Because better sense would always be subject to the rule of the tyrant Biology. Capitol B.

That said, it was not rocket science to understand why her brain made the leap to someone who treated inanimate objects with such meticulous attention treating a bed partner just as attentively. Not that that was what she wanted.

Oh, who was she kidding? When her daydreams kept playing host to the near-rabid curiosity as to what her one-time captor might look like without all those layers of clothes it was a little pointless to pretend, wasn’t it?

Yeah.

Well, she was in it now. Might as well get whatever joy she could out of it.

She grabbed an open package of cookies to have something to do with her hands and chewed at the corner of one. They were the cheap, generic brand sandwich kind with the chemical-sweet frosting – which said that either the people he’d relieved of them were either young or had specific tastes – but so far she’d had no problem getting through half of them. It was a pretty pathetic cover, and there was nothing surreptitious about the way she was eyeballing him over the food, but it was still better than just sitting there staring at him with her mouth open like a fish. Because she probably would have, given the chance. It wouldn’t have been the first time.

She kept thinking back to what it had felt like to be pressed up against him, his hand against her side and his back against her cheek. Did so almost to the point of it becoming obsessive. She kept remembering how the muscle had bunched beneath his coat, proving that whatever bulk he had was his and not the result of padded clothing.

The remembering made her somewhat giddy, which in turn made her feel absurd, and simultaneously unsure whether she should be ashamed of herself or just fucking laugh. Especially when she repeatedly caught herself studying his booted feet and wondering with a tangled mix of curiosity and concern whether it was true what people said about the correlation between foot size and the size of…other extremities.

Oh, yes. She was in it now.

So many of the stories painted him as some vengeful, bloody patron saint pitted against the demons of premarital sex, or just sex in general. Whitney didn’t think that was the case. His mother had been the one to pin that crime on the counselors that had let him drown, condemning them as having been too busy screwing one another to properly watch the children in their charge. The girl that had survived the incident those years ago had reported that Pamela had even said as much – loudly and somewhat erratically through her tears. The poor woman.

It was just a theory – though one she would have put serious money on – but she didn’t think Jason knew enough about sex to care whether the kids he slaughtered were boning or not. He killed them because they came onto his land, not because they drank or smoked or fucked, or anything else. They were there. That was offense enough. Of course she had no real evidence to support it, after all just because a man didn't make a pass at her didn't by default make him ignorant, or gay. But she just...she had a feeling. He looked at her sometimes when she knew the expression on her own silly face would have been enough of a hint for most guys to realize she was thinking about what they looked like with their shirt off, but the connection just wasn't there. He didn't see it, and it wasn't because he was slow.

Just like he didn’t have the social context to make him an overly-macho asshole afraid of his own emotions, he didn’t have the context to understand human mating behavior – which she termed thus only because she couldn’t necessarily assume he didn’t understand it where animals were concerned. It was possible that if she’d been a bear or a finch he’d be able to tell. But she was a person, and people were stupid, _stupid_ complicated, and never more so (or weirdly less so) then where relationships were concerned. And so much of that came down to things that were socially constructed and had very little to do with the actual act and the possible result of children. Especially for women.

Whether her theory was right or not, she was grateful beyond all reason that he didn’t seem to notice her being her creep self. She could wallow in her own overactive hormones in peace without the indignity of him knowing.

Chewing her cookie, she followed the path of his hand as he made another pass with the cloth. She would have sworn there was something almost loving in the way he touched it, meticulous and gentle. His fingertips followed the subtle curve of the blade with the same devotion she had once shown Mike’s biceps. Not to mention other things.

It was that easy. Her brain took the image and ran with it like a crazed cheetah on crack.

He was lying on his back atop her too-small striped mattress, coat and shirt gone – sacrificed to some other plain of existence – and she was straddling his hips, running her fingers over the naked plains of his stomach. He wouldn’t be cut like a gym rat, but like an athlete, like a farmer, like a man who used his body the way it had been made by nature to be used. She would lower her mouth to follow the path her hands made with her lips until all that muscle flexed and strained, until those lovely steely eyes of his became dark with the same desperate fever she felt coiling deep in her belly. Not that he would ever let her do such a thing. Not unless she utilized those manacles, maybe.

Oh, _fucking_ hell.

She felt the tell-tale liquid rush between her thighs, and it was completely her own fault but damn if she didn’t all but throw the package of cookies as if they’d bitten her.

Stupid cookies.

Stupid goddamn human brain and its stupid susceptibility to such ridiculous fucking _fantasies_.

Decisively she got to her feet, determined to shake it off.

There was no jangle of chain when she stepped from the mattress onto the dirt. He had taken to keeping her unbound pretty much whenever he was within the same vicinity, which was most of the time now, and which made it possible for her to get up and walk around the space when she wanted to so long as she stuck to the main big room. He had only needed to shoo her away from one of the branching tunnels once for her to get the message, but she got the impression it was more a matter of safety than one of control, since he had also taken to letting her wander almost completely out of sight when out in the woods now. She had kept her word not to try another solo sprinting expedition, and he trusted her to come back.

It was dangerous, that trust. It had the unfortunate side-effect of making her weirdly hopeful, which was all kinds of dumb. She had no business hoping. There was no hope of anything with this man. What was there to hope for with someone who had no concept of relationships? She could be his friend, although even that was debatable when her ovaries kept screeching like they were – the wanton hussies. But what could come of that, really? At some point this would have to end, wouldn’t it? And then what?

At the sound of movement Jason looked up from the machete in his lap, cocking his head in a way that somehow managed to convey concern in addition to curiosity.

She hadn’t really noticed before, but in that exact moment she became aware just how extremely attuned they were to one another. He could tell just from the way she stood up that she was agitated, and she could tell just from the way he moved his head that he had sensed it. In other people she might have called that chemistry.

Her laugh caught her by surprise. It left her in a wheezing bark which she quickly masked with a cough.

“Just needed to get up for a minute,” she said, waving an airy hand as she lifted her arms above her head and stretched.

He regarded her steadily, and for the space of an instant she was positive he was fully aware that she was full of shit. Part of her hoped he’d call her on it, somehow. Put down the machete, stand up, and do…something. She didn’t know what. The only things she could think of him doing were things he would in no way ever do, which wasn’t helping her bullshit face at all.

Finally he gave her an infinitesimal nod and lowered his gaze back to the blade, allowing her to let out a breath and try to will her pulse into calming down.

She continued to stretch, channeling the energy into activity as best she could, all while mulling over the tiny revelation she’d just had.

Whitney had thought she knew what chemistry was. Books and movies all touted it as this electric, burning force between people, and she’d determined this was the natural exaggeration of fiction. Other women tended to spout this same story, talking of a spark or some bright, tingling connection. But when she had been drawn to boys before it had been due to what she supposed were the usual kinds of things; a nice smile, interesting conversation, humor, height, and so on. Mike had had all of these things and more, which was why she’d gotten involved with him to begin with. Things with him had been easy, comfortable, more so than with any other guy she’d dated – a comfort that had seemed unearned, but that had been so darn nice that she had leaned all the way into it. What was that if not chemistry?

Mike had been average in a number of ways, she had come to realize: average height, average built, average – if pleasant – looks, average smarts, average goals. Her kind of average, she’d thought, because that was all she had wanted. She didn’t need something electric and exciting, just something stable, something real. It had never occurred to her that average might not suit her the way she thought it would, or that normal might chafe when hard times came knocking.

Mike had been average down to the blood in his veins, down to the core. It was that very comfortable normalcy that had kept him in the state of just post-college stagnation while she was spending her days inside a crucible being reshaped right next to him. It hadn’t been his fault, or hers. It had just happened, the way life did.

She was not the same girl she had been two years ago. Hell, she wasn’t the same girl she had been a _month_ ago, and even discounting the trauma and strangeness of it all there was no way she would have been able to stay with Mike for much longer. Whether his kind of average had been her kind once, it hadn’t been any more. And it sure as shit wasn’t now. As it turned out, her kind of average wasn’t average at all.

Her eyes slid almost reflexively to Jason, and her heart skipped a half frantic beat when she found him looking at her – his gaze glittering out at her from the dual layers of dark provided by the corner shadows and those from the mask. Her very _skin_ seemed to wake up and pay attention, as though just the look had power she had only ever associated with touch.

And he wasn’t even looking at her like _that._ He was just looking at her, probably because she was acting weird.

Yet she still felt her insides tremble as though all the little butterflies that lived there were rip-roaring drunk and all kinds of eager to throw themselves at the nearest available behemoth of a man.

She hereby swallowed all of the trash she had ever talked about those books and movies in the past. Turns out they weren’t just selling false expectations after all. Who knew? Too bad none of them had had any advice on what to do when one _sparked_ with a serial killer.

Actually, she was pretty sure there were a couple that did, but they were nothing she wanted anything to do with. Because she was nothing like those women that fawned over evil people, who wrote them fan letters and married them while they were serving out life sentences in jail. She’d take _her_ serial killer over those garbage humans, thank you very much.

God, listen to her: _her serial killer._

Jason had gone back to work on the machete, apparently accepting that she was just in a strange mood (which shouldn’t have been endearing but kind of was), flipping the blade over and administering more of the mineral oil to the other side of the metal. It was obscene, though it really wasn’t, and she had to bite into the inside of her cheek to keep from snorting.

Bending to scoop up a passing rat, Whitney cuddled the little beast to her face.

“Help,” she whispered into its fur.

A tiny paw pressed against her nose, a whiskered nose sniffing gently at her closed eyelid. She laughed, partly because it tickled, but also at the sheer hilarity of the situation. She just needed a minute or two. All too soon she’d be right back where she was, objectifying the man that had almost murdered her like the happy nutball she was.

Oh well. There were, in fact, far worse things.

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY - we've reached the month mark. Jesus christ I wasn't sure I was going to make it.
> 
> I can fairly confidently say I will not be filling up the film canon timeline of six weeks. I don't know the specifics, but I know we're not far off from the latter three quarters of the film events. 
> 
> I just want to take a minute to share a bit of amusement at myself: usually dialogue is very difficult for me to write, which is why I thought this story - with Jason's particular proclivity toward not talking (whatever the reason) - would be easier than others I've written. HAH. Think again. I cannot tell you how difficult it is to write one-sided dialogue that does anything. I feel very much like Whitney probably does...like, how do formulate questions that can be non-verbally answered in a way that makes sense and that gets us anywhere? So it feels stunted and weird, but it kind of should? For as difficult as I find it sometimes, I didn't realize how heavily I lean on it most of the time, especially where building relationships are concerned. Think about it, we humans rely a lot on talking to figure shit out. I think a lot of why this character dynamic works is because of Jason's being something of a social blank-slate. Maybe I'm wrong. 
> 
> On that note, what are your theories as to why Jason doesn't talk? Do you think it's a choice? Or that it's psychosomatic? Personally I think he's physically incapable of it, but what do you think?
> 
> It's also really hard to write this kind of naivety in a character. I don't mean it's hard writing a dude being the innocent one, I mean literal, hardcore ignorance of certain behaviors. Whitney's theory is basically my own. If we considering where and when she grew up, it's likely Pamela was pretty conservative, and if she was a single mother and carried the stigma of that that still existed pretty heavily in the 70s and 80s, and add to that having a kid that's a little off...I don't imagine she got around to the birds and the bees talk. If she ever would have. Anyway. I know the whole "Jason hates sex" is a thing, but I don't really subscribe to it, personally. He never seems more or less apathetic or pissed about people that are screwing versus people that aren't. He treats everybody pretty much the same. It's one of the reasons I like him so much.
> 
> And as Whitney says: we're in it now, folks!
> 
> Thank you all so much for the love. I got several really lovely comments from some awesome people last chapter, and it really made my life a bit brighter. So, truly, thank you! <3
> 
> Until next time!


	12. When Your Heart is a Stranger

* * *

 

 

**Day 35**

Whitney had one goal when she woke that morning. Wash some goddamn clothes. 

Summer was not high on her list of favorite things. She didn’t do well in hot weather. She was much more of a fall and spring kind of girl, but if she had to choose, she would have taken winter twelve times out of ten. 

It had to be deep into August by now. Every day for the past week had been hotter than the last. But today was the kind of day when the heat became so intense that it was physically oppressive. It was difficult to move and harder to breathe, difficult to think, or do much else other than lay spread-eagle on the kitchen floor and stew in a pool of sweat and light hallucinations. Or it would have been had she had a kitchen floor to wallow on. After four days of sweating through clothes, it had become clear that laundry was a thing she needed to address.

It seemed that after the hurdle of the shower (of which she'd had several more since the first), Jason didn't require much convincing to agree to take her to the stream so she could wash a few things. 

So far, the acquisition of tools had proved her biggest obstacle. She had all but gutted the house's tiny mudroom searching for soap, only to find a half-used bottle of detergent tucked away behind a stack of towels. She was now in the kitchen, repeating the same process of opening and rifling through every drawer and cupboard within reach looking for something to scrub with. 

"There has to be something," she said for what had to have been the thousandth time in the last five minutes, as she pried open yet another cabinet door and peered inside. "A sponge or a fingernail brush. Hell, I'll take a Brillo pad." Rising up on her knees, she gripped the handle of the little drawer under a microwave she very much doubted was safe to be around anymore. The drawer was stuck, and crackled ominously as she tugged at it. She managed to coax it open, revealing a slightly mildewy pair of rubber gloves and a brand new, unopened scrubbing brush. 

"Thank you," she murmured to the universe, seizing the brush and shutting the drawer with a gentle push. She turned to the door where Jason waited, one big hand balancing the bundle of clothes she had wrapped up in the oversize plaid shirt. Tucking soap and brush inside she took it from him, pushing her arm through the knotted sleeves and slung the bundle over her shoulder as she might have done a purse. Smiling up at him, she flashed a thumbs up. "Ok, all set!"

Reaching over her, he pulled the screen door open and held it for her to pass though - something he had done so many times now that it should have been easy to overlook, but which never ceased to instill a sense of curiosity into how he might have been raised before the untimely loss of his parent. Had he been taught to do it, or did it just seem like a logical thing to him? He did it completely unironically, without expecting anything, but the only reason she didn't unleash a mousy thank you every single time was because he had established it as the way of things long before she had been in the frame of mind to be gracious in any way. 

They set out for the stream in comfortable silence, Whitney thinking for what had to have been the thousandth time how grateful she was that his company did not demand any performance from her. He seemed to enjoy it when she talked, and sometimes she did. A lot. She seemed to remember going on for at least forty-five minutes about how quickly plants would take over the world when people no longer inhabited the earth the other day. Or the time she had abruptly remembered that she had never actually told him her name.

"I just realized I'm a horrible person," she'd stated bluntly, turning to him with a face she knew was solid self-annoyance. "My name is Whitney."

He had nodded almost as soon as the name left her, his eyes steady on her face. Had he already known? 

"You already knew? How did..." But she already knew how, didn't she? He had heard two different men spend their last moments screaming it at her before he ended them. Obviously, he had put two and two together. "Right," she had corrected, "Well, anyway. Hi."

It had been inane and utterly stupid, but she had seen the corners of his eyes crease in the way she knew must accompany a smile. Amusement certainly, and, or so she imaged, a hint of fondness, too. Which of course had set the butterflies in her stomach into a giddy riot. 

She tended to talk a lot about idle, silly things. Things she remembered from childhood, or from school: for instance, the time she'd had her wisdom teeth removed and had been so high on Percocet that she'd been convinced the applesauce she had been eating was actually dog food and royally freaked out about it for no good reason. Which was a story he had seemed to find particularly entertaining. But for all he apparently liked it, he didn't seem to mind when she  _didn't_  talk, either, and it was so nice to be around someone that didn't need to fill every scrap of quiet with mindless talk just for the sake of it. Like her, he appeared utterly at ease with silence. 

He brought her to a part of the stream they hadn't visited before, where the water was deeper and faster-moving. She took measure of the spot, noting the large rocks that jutted out from the water, and nodded her approval. She didn't much fancy dumping a bunch of soap in a natural water source - was pretty sure she'd read somewhere doing so was all kinds of bad - but Jason didn't seem concerned, and at the very least she had to have some clean underwear. So, shucking her shoes and rolling up the legs of her jeans, she clutched her bundle of laundry and stepped into the water. 

It wasn't exactly cool, not in weather like this. But it was still water, and the easy flow of it about her ankles still managed to have a faint cooling affect for which Whitney was beyond appreciative. She picked her way out to one of the larger, flatter rocks a few feet from the bank and sat, knees spread wide and bare feet braced against the silty, rocky bottom. For a few moments she simply sat there, relishing what breeze there was in combination with the lick of water about her shins. Once ready to get down to business, she hit another snag in the form of figuring out how the heck she was going to do what she had set out to. 

Nothing made one appreciate modern technology quite like the lack of it. When the dishwasher broke, or when there was no washer or dryer in an apartment, people tended to remember how grateful they should be for the convenience of such appliances. Not to mention the time and work they saved. Whitney hadn’t thought it was possible to miss a laundry room quite to the extent that she missed the one at home, but boy howdy did she miss it. 

It took her a little while to find a rhythm. She knew how washing machines worked, but it was another thing entirely to replicate the process with nothing but a big-ass rock and a scrub brush. After some unsuccessful starts, she got it. Wet garment, lay out on the rock, apply soap to the particularly needful places, scrub with brush. Flip, turn, fold inside out, and scrub some more. Rinse. Smell test, and either repeat, or toss to the shore onto the plaid shirt – the first of her experimental scrubbing victims – to be dried later.

It wasn’t particularly difficult work, though the heat didn’t help. Just monotonous and repetitive, and with the potential to exacerbate the tendonitis that had been threatening to develop in her wrist for over a year – which she considered fair trade for clean underwear.

Jason stood at the bank some yards away, waiting patiently while she did her washing. He wasn’t really watching her, exactly. She had no doubt he had an eye on her – that was just how he was – but he seemed more interested in observing their surroundings than studying what she was doing. Right now, he had his face turned away from her, casting his gaze out into the trees back the way they had come. That said…

Maybe she was just overly sensitive, but it felt a tad weird to be washing her underwear in front of him. Not that he was paying attention to what she washed, and even if he did, chances were he wouldn’t see any more significance in a pair of panties than a shirt. She still hunched around them as she worked, as if to conceal something shameful, which was completely ridiculous. She didn’t actually realize she was doing it until she felt the pinch in her lower back and had to sit up to stretch it out. They were just underwear, for goodness’ sake. All but one of the four pairs weren’t even hers to begin with, but had belonged to some other girl – some other dead girl. Whitney had made her peace with that rather quickly; after all, the poor girl was dead. What did she care what happened to her clothes? But for whatever reason she felt weird about washing it in the company of someone who could literally not give any fewer shits.

Rolling her eyes at herself, she lifted the current pair to her nose, declared them clean, and lobbed them toward the growing pile of wet clothes on the shore.

She hummed softly as she lowered the next item into the stream, submersing it into the soap-frothed water that moved lazily about her shins. She’d had the song stuck in her head since yesterday and couldn’t seem to shake it – possibly because she quite intentionally kept to humming rather than actually singing it for reasons she didn’t fully understand herself. It wasn’t  _that_ dirty of a song. Well, ok, it kind of was; seeing as it explicitly talked about going down to the river and getting on one’s knees…

So apparently she was developing into even _more_ of a perv.

Anyway.

She shoved the hair back from her face. It kept falling out of the knot she’d tied it in – a result of the less than ideal twine securing it combined with the fact that her entire scalp was basically coated in sweat.

“God, it’s too hot even for ice cream,” she complained to herself, “and  _all_  weather is ice cream weather.”

Jason was looking at her when she straightened to toss the newly washed shirt to the shore.

Her mouth twisted, adopting a not-quite frown. “I talk about food a lot, don’t I,” she mused. He didn’t answer, but she knew it was true. “Sorry.”

He tilted his head at her as if puzzled, and she realized it was a bit silly to apologize. He didn’t eat, but  _she_  did. Apparently, it was kind of a thing when one needed it to survive, and clearly her doing so didn't offend him.

“People do that, now that I think about it.” Picking up another shirt, she shoved it into the water. “We talk about food all the time; what to have for lunch, where to go for dinner. How many calories are in this, whether that’s bad for your teeth, about the article we read last week about how red wine is good for you and how the week before the same studies said it was as good as poison. Talk about first world problems.” 

Absently she shook her head, swishing the shirt around in the water between her hands to rinse out the soapsuds. 

"No lie though, too hot or not, there's not a lot I wouldn't do for ice cream right now. My grandparents had this awesome house up in the mountains, and when we were kids, we would spend the summers up there with them before they died. My grandpa would help us make our own ice cream."

She could almost feel Jason's head tilt with curiosity, though she wasn't looking at him. 

“You put the ingredients in a plastic bag and seal it really well, and then you put that bag inside another bag along with ice and some rock salt, and that freezes the mixture and makes ice cream. I remember once my bag leaked, my ice cream got super salty and so I stole Clay's when..."

Something twisted in her chest; a tumult of emotion flaring inside her like the sun hitting the glass of a windshield at the most inopportune time. 

"...when he wasn't looking."

Her grip tightened ever so slightly on the scrub brush as she took a breath that shuddered like a tired muscle.

Clay had retaliated to the theft by pulling her hair, to which she had then responded by punching him straight in the nose. They had been young at the time, with him barely ten, making her a fiery - and bad-tempered - seven. They had fought so much as kids. Things had been better once they'd reached their pre-teen years, irony of ironies, until everything went to shit.

Whitney hadn’t talked to her brother for over half a year, and even then it had only been the obligatory happy birthday call. He had dropped out of high school and gone off to live the nomadic, interesting life that suited his artist heart. And for as pissed as she had been and as abandoned as she had felt at first, she had come to understand that Clay was at his best when he was free, when he wasn't tied down to one place or one job. He had always been that way, ever since they were little.

In the beginning, he had called all the time, with plenty of interesting stories to tell about the places he'd been to and jobs he had done, and an ear ready to listen to her whine about stupid teem girl drama without a single complaint. He had come home for every Christmas, made it to several of her track meets. He had bought her her first drink on her twenty-first birthday. Then Mom had the biopsy, the diagnosis, and something inside him just...cracked.

She had forgiven him a long time ago for walking away. People responded to grief in different ways - they could only handle as much as they could handle. To the core of her being, she still knew and believed that. But as time had grown short, so did her tolerance for the visits that grew fewer and further apart, the phone calls that dwindled to no more than the very necessary. Before she knew it, they had had fewer and fewer things to talk about, and what little conversation they shared became tense and heavy with all the things they weren't saying to one another.

When she had first recognized the anger, it hadn't been about herself but about mom, who should have been able to see her other child more than for a few minutes every year. And even when she was forced to admit that some of her anger was on her own behalf, it was only really ever because she had always supported him when he needed her to, but when she needed him, he couldn't get over his own shit long enough to return the favor just for a little while. She had even broken down and called him a week before the camping trip, leaving him a voicemail begging him to please come home because she needed her big brother. He hadn't called her back.

So was so mad at him that she could spit nails, but she would have forgiven it all the second he walked in the door if he’d just come home like she’d asked…

She didn't want to think about Clay. She had known since finding herself in chains that on top of everything else, thinking about him would only break her like a twig beneath one of Jason’s boots. It had hurt less to think of herself as an only child rather than to dwell on the fact that her brother just couldn’t – or else  _wouldn’t_  – help her. Up until now she had managed to keep her mind off the subject with reasonable success, but even as she forcefully shoved thoughts of Clay from her brain she felt a scraping pain.

Nothing had changed. Best not think about it anymore.

Jason was still regarding her from his spot on the bank. He didn’t appear to have noticed the abrupt drop in her mood, for which she was thankful. Mustering what scraps of a smile she could manage, she sloppily wrung out the newly clean shirt, droplets of water dappling the knees of her jeans.

“So what did you think about the ending of the last book?”

If they kept going through books at the rate they were, they would get through the entire crate within a few months. Just counting the ones she was willing to read aloud, because there were three she absolutely refused to. She wouldn’t censor the books she read on principle, and whether he followed certain words or subjects or whether he didn’t wasn’t her responsibility until he stopped her to ask – which he never did. But she would not be reading what was tantamount to porn in front of him for several sound reasons. Not unless threatened with death and torment. And even then it was debatable.

Nor would she pick up the Arthur Miller screenplay, because  _that_  was a punishment she had no desire to suffer through.

“I didn’t expect it was going to be the architect, he seemed so harmless.”

She heard Jason’s snort of derision at her description, and the smile that had begun its life as a fake became real.

Tossing the shirt to the shore, she reached for the next one: the green tee she had worn for almost three straight weeks. She had debated bringing it, unsure whether it was worth trying to salvage. It was permanently stained, and ragged at the hem, but none of the seams had torn. Stains aside, it was still a serviceable shirt.

Slathering the thing with soap, she went at the discoloration in the armpits with double the vigor she had used for the last garment, wrinkling her nose at the instant darkening of the suds that were produced.

So that’s what three weeks of sweat and dirt looked like.

_Gross._

“I had this friend in high school,” she mused, leaning closer to the garment spread out over the rock between her legs. “We would go to our local bookstore and leave notes in books for the people who might buy them: ones we loved or couldn’t stand, we’d explain why. Or ones that looked interesting or had pretty covers, we would wish the reader a fun journey and to return the favor later with recommendations or cautions of their own.”

Lowering the tee into the stream she swished away most of the suds before flipping it over and slapping it back down onto the rock. The spray of droplets against her arms and face cool in the seconds before they evaporated.

“We kept hoping someday we’d find a note left by someone else, but we never did. She lives in Seattle now—working for some big publishing company.”

Movement flashed to her right and she glanced automatically, not at all expecting what she saw.

In the time she had spent in his company, Jason had never changed clothes. He never rolled up his sleeves or zipped up the front of his coat, and aside from the switch from sackcloth to mask; nothing about his appearance had altered by even a fraction of an inch. It was for this reason that seeing him shrug out of his coat right there in front of her had the impact it did.

His shirt had once been white, or maybe gray. It was an unidentifiable non-color now, so mottled with stains that it almost looked like some kind of camouflage, and riddled with tiny holes and torn ragged at the cuffs and collar. At first glance, one might have thought he wasn’t wearing a shirt at all, the color blended almost precisely with what skin was visible. And nope, there was absolutely no padding in that coat.

_Hello, shoulders._

Without the extra layer, it was easier to see the odd lay of the muscle at the right side of his neck, an uneven bulkiness that almost leant the appearance of a hunched or twisted shoulder. But upon closer inspection, it seemed mostly superficial, and blended smoothly into a broad, strong back that was clearly no worse off for it.

He sank into a fluid crouch, spreading the coat over an arm, and she was momentarily thrown by her own curiosity.

After all this time, why remove it now? Sure, it was the hottest day yet by far, but he had never shown signs of even minimal discomfort before. Surely he wasn’t going to copy her? Although she supposed he might wash his clothes on occasion to get rid of smells, to avoid being traced and all. But then wouldn’t his shirt be the more likely carrier? And now that she thought about it, she had never really noticed him smelling aside from…well, ways that were decidedly not bad.

Did he bathe? He must, otherwise he would reek like something unbelievable. After all, he was no different from any other man.

Jason’s head bent over the coat as he peered down at it as though searching for something. His fingers skimmed down the back of garment, following the shoulder seam, and then his hand closed, gripping a fistful of fabric and pulling it taut, causing the line of his bicep to bunch and swell against his shirtsleeve.

Ok, she amended mentally. Not just like any other man.

Holy shit on a hot tin roof, no  _wonder_  he could haul her around like a doll. He must have been completely different as a child. There was no way there could have been any promise of…well,  _this_  when he’d been younger. Surely no idiot kids, no matter how bratty, would have dared to mess with him if there had. But, no, that wasn’t necessarily true. He didn’t carry himself like a man that understood the implicit threat in his size, and he was so sweet, even now – after everything. He would have been just like Ferdinand the Bull. Which no doubt was taken vicious advantage of.

Once again she felt a cold rush of righteous anger for the people that had hurt him. But her fury cooled quickly this time, for as she watched him prod at a spot beneath the sleeve of the coat she was reminded that in spite of them and their efforts, he was still that sweet, gentle boy. They hadn’t managed to make him a monster, all evidence to the contrary.

Whitney scrubbed absently at the shirt in front of her, watching as he slid a hand beneath the coat hem to feel around, as his shoulders rose and fell in a soft sigh.

“What’s wrong?"

His head angled toward her. Lifting the coat, he showed her the fingers that poked through a hole in under the arm, and it was such an innocent gesture that it pulled the smile from her.

“Don’t worry,” she offered, lowering the soapy shirt for another rinse, “I can probably fix that one too.”

Slick as an eel, the shirt slipped from between her fingers to float off down the slow-moving current. She leaned reflexively to snatch it back, her body tipping sideways…and the next thing she knew she was sliding into the stream with a flail and a startled yelp.

*

Jason had an aversion to water. A fairly straightforward, logical aversion as far as aversions went, but it was a strong one. It wasn't that he feared all water. Rain didn't bother him, nor did the drinking stuff in the jugs which he brought to Whitney. It was when the water collected into larger bodies that he begun to feel anxious about it. He could tolerate the stream enough to wash if he had need, and would cross it if he had to, but any contact with water he had was undertaken with extreme levels of caution and what he considered to be appropriate wariness. Water was no friend of his. They were grudging acquaintances at the very best. He  _did not_  go charging in without due thought and consideration. But the instant he saw Whitney slip sideways into the stream he forgot all about his caution, misplaced the aversion of over twenty years.

Panic seized him like a fist high about the throat, rendering everything else as inconsequential and unimportant as a speck of dirt. He was up and moving within the span of a single broken heartbeat. The coat fell, abandoned, the muscles in his back and abdomen screaming as he threw himself across the bank and headlong into the water.

She hadn’t even gone under, her hair was still dry but for the ends which had slipped from the knot at the back of her neck. But even seeing this couldn’t quash the terror icy and sick where it curdled alongside the adrenaline in his veins. His pulse had gone to thunder in his own ears, his entire focus centered on the urgent need to get to her – to seize her around the middle and haul her from the shallow ribbon of liquid death.

She was laughing as he clutched her to him. Her entire form vibrated with it, jarring in contrast to the pitch of his alarm. Water from her clothes was soaking into the front of his shirt where her shoulder blades pressed into his chest and he didn’t care. He just needed her on land. _Now._

He turned sharply, bearing her swiftly to the bank and it was this, it seemed, which drew her attention to the tension in him, for her bright, sweet laughter quickly quieted, reshaping within the confines of her mouth.

“Hey,” she crooned softly.

Her hand found his arm, resting there just over the bend of his elbow. Soothing, reassuring.

“Hey, I’m all right.”

He couldn’t put her down right away. He tried to, he truly did, but something in him simply wouldn’t let him. It was all he could do to hold her there, feeling her breath, feeling one of her bare feet brush the outside of his knee as she dangled within his grip. She was just so small, so delicate…and yet she wasn’t at all. Her size and apparent fragility concealed an unexpected hardiness, as he well knew. Still, it had done something to him to see her at the mercy of his greatest of nemeses, even if the danger had been exclusively in his own mind. 

“I’m all right.”

And she must be, otherwise she wouldn’t have been laughing like that, so freely, so at ease. She wouldn’t be speaking to him now as if she were gentling a wild beast. Which seemed an apt description, in truth.

Slowly he lowered her to the ground, bending until he felt the soft impact of her feet meeting the grass. But he did not release her. Not yet. Not even when she twisted within the tight circle of his arms to face him, her hand fisting into the fabric of his sleeve as her eyes darting to the eye slots of his mask, all the green in them swallowed up by warm brown. She was gripping the item of clothing she had been washing in her other hand and she cast it to the ground as he watched.

There was something inscrutable in her expression as she lifted that hand, something tentative as she reached, hesitated, and then laid her palm against the side of his mask directly over the place where his cheek would have been, her brow furrowing with gentle concern.

He could feel the heat of her touch through the perforation in the fiberglass. So close, so wonderfully, intolerably close to the wreckage of his right side…but he couldn’t move, could do nothing but look at her, at her lovely face and the damp, curling tendrils of hair trailing down the side of her neck to tangle with the ribbon tied there, soft and deep russet where the water had touched it.

It was irrational to an extreme how much he wanted to touch her hair.

The rest of her was completely sodden. The denim of her pants had been painted dark and her shirt now stuck to her skin, clinging like a milky film to her form. Beneath it, he recognized the wire-and-elastic contraption, clearly visible where it had been strapped around her chest and shoulders. There was skin visible above the band of her jeans where the wet shirt hem had ridden up. Just a sliver of it, smooth and pale.

She was looking at him that way again – eyes a little too wide, lips parted, as if waiting for something –and radiating the same not-fear he remembered from before, strong and vibrant as a lit candle radiated light. Her cheeks had gone a soft shade of pink, a flush that traveled down her neck to vanish beneath the waterlogged collar of her shirt. And she smelled…different. There was something beneath her usual clean, pleasant scent, something different, but not entirely new. It wasn’t the first time, he realized. He had caught it once or twice before; a musky sweetness that he couldn’t identify. That was heightened inexplicably now, rich and heady.

He heard her suck in a sharp inhale, saw her chest rise and expand with it as she snatched her hand from his mask as if it had scalded her. His own breath had gone strange and thick in his lungs, as though a great weight was constricting his lungs in a way very different from the way it did when he was remembering what it was to drown. Drowning hadn’t felt like this. Drowning was burning and pain, where this was aching and… 

And…

He felt the delicate connection break as surely as a bone snapping underfoot. The moment was gone, though he was clueless as to what had caused it. 

With another swift inhale, Whitney took a step back, extricating herself from his arms. Jason had to struggle against the urge to lock his wrists, to close his hands around her waist and drag her back against him. An urge as baffling as it was powerful. She turned, bending to collect the clothing she had dropped. His eyes followed without his direct permission, drawn somehow to the graceful arch of her back, flowing slim and straight into the taper of her waist – the swell of her backside. Then she was straightening, wringing out the shirt with a firm twist of wrists and depositing it with the rest of the freshly washed things.

She had just lifted her foot, preparing to step back into the water, to carry on with the washing yet to be done. His fingers closed about her wrist before he could stop them, the worry flaring in time to the whisper of heat that crept across his skin, curling like the charred edges of paper at the touch of hers. Her eyes fell to his hand with another flash of knowing sympathy that almost stung. 

Swallowing his worry and his guilt he forced his hand to open, releasing her. He didn’t need her to tell him she would be fine, though he heard her do so anyway. He knew she would be, knew that it was foolish, pointless, even, to keep her from her chore when the risk was so low. It wasn’t really about the water, after all. At least not this second time. The reflex had been based in something else, and yet once again he was left staring down the gaps in his knowledge as they yawned wide and impenetrable before him.

He felt wrong. He didn’t know any other way to describe it. Just wrong, as though something inside him had turned like milk did when left to sit too long. He felt as stupid as he supposedly was, as slow and addle-headed as the rumors painted him to be – stupid and shaken.

And  _terrified._

Whether she had meant it at the time or whether it had been deception, Whitney hadn’t made any indication of plotting to escape since her last ill-fated attempt. She had stuck close ever since, to the point where even when she wandered a little beyond his immediate line of sight he no longer felt the unease that she might disappear. It was only due to this that he allowed himself to slip into the fringe of trees as she turned back to her task, confident that she was beyond seizing any opportunity to run off and – as she herself had put it – get herself maimed.

Finding a spot shrouded completely in shade, he closed his eyes and took a breath, drawing in the scents of greenery and dry grass, bark and loam, the subtle, ever-present odor of plant-rot, and pulling them deep inside his lungs. Listening for the quiet rustle of leaf and creak of tree limb, he let the sounds fill his ears. He ground his feet against the soil beneath him, tipping back his face as he felt the subtle vibration of the earth in response.

He was forever tied to this land, to the earth and the power within it; bound by blood and breath and bone. It was all that he was, all that he would ever be. He could not forget himself completely so long as he kept the ground beneath his feet. He simply had to remember.

After another few moments spent immersed in the familiar, he returned to her, steadied, re-centered, and determined to shake off whatever it was that had made him feel like a stranger in his own flesh.

*

It had been funny at first.

The runaway shirt had been tangled between the fingers of her left hand where she had snatched it from the clutches of the gentle current. She had almost choked on her gasp at the shock, the sensation of lost balance and of hitting the surface colliding with the pure relief of flopping in the water on a day hot enough to blister, and before she had even recovered her breath she had been cackling like a mad hen.

She had been barely cognizant of anything beyond the flow of the water around her or the shudder of her body with the force of own laughter. Even once Jason reached her, plucking her from the water and carting her to shore like the clumsy child she apparently was, she didn’t notice the strain. Not until he had put several yards between them and the stream. Abruptly she had registered the way he gripped her, firmly to his chest, arms banded tight about her middle, coiled with a tense ferocity that didn't match her own amusement.

It took her a moment to understand. She was fine after all; her head hadn’t even gone under. Then it had hit her: she had  _fallen in_ , and in the split instant it would have taken to process that he wouldn't have been thinking about the depth or speed of the current, or of how very little danger she logically would have been in. It wouldn't have mattered whether or not she was a good swimmer – she was adequate, not that the subject had come up – just as it hadn’t mattered that she had been spluttering and giggling the second she hit the water. All that would have mattered was that she had gone in. 

And oh,  _god._ Of course he was tense. She had scared him, deeply, for all that she hadn't meant to.

She laid a hand against his arm, murmuring calming reassurances while he stood there, clutching her to him as though he didn't know what else to do, and he was _trembling_  beneath her touch, which tore straight at her heart.

Gradually he seemed to calm. Yet even when he finally found the power to set her down he didn't let go, merely eased the strength of his grip so that she could turn around. 

It wasn’t necessary to see his face to know how far he was from all right. His body language was rarely so subtle that she couldn't interpret it, but now it was so loud that he might as well have been screaming. He had been so afraid that she might be hurt - might  _drown,_  as he had drowned. The fear of it was fever-bright in eyes gone wild and pale behind his mask; and the way he cradled her, the way he kept hold of her, as if it wasn't really a choice....everything inside her softened, at once bleeding for the reasons behind it and melting for its own sake.

Half by instinct, half by impulse she dropped the water-choked shirt, not caring if it got dirty all over again. She lifted her hand, a tiny flicker of uncertainty stalling her reach for only a moment before resting the flat of her palm against the side of his mask. 

Fiberglass met her palm, the once smooth texture rendered uneven by the nicks and dents of use and age and the pattern of tiny holes. It was neither cool nor warm. Nor did it give beneath her hand like skin would, and she found herself intensely dissatisfied that for all she was touching what served him as a face, he could not feel her. A pang of sadness floated through her to think of the kind of psychological damage it took to reduce someone to feeling more at home projecting a façade to the world in the place of their own face. Sadness and secondhand pain and a helpless, useless rage. The pad of her thumb skimmed the faded red mark that slashed beneath his eye. There was a scar at the base of his throat, just to the right; a faint white line angling down toward the collarbone where someone had tried to cut into the jugular and end him and failed. That would have been a souvenir from adulthood, she surmised, perhaps when he had been first starting out in the killing trade. She couldn't imagine anyone getting close enough to scar him now. 

Later, she would wonder whether it had been the closeness. In the moment, all she’d known was that she could feel the latent strength of his arms around her, feel the heat of his flesh through the shirt. She had been able to make out the shallow line that halved his chest where the water soaking her clothes had seeped into his, highlighting the broad slabs of muscle there. All of a sudden, the sympathy and care that had driven her to lay her hands on him was no longer about comfort. His gaze was locked with hers, staring so fixedly that even while she knew it was concern and nothing else she still felt her face go warm.

Then his eyes dropped, redirecting the force of that look downward, and it was with a sharp, reflexive inhale that she remembered she was wearing white, that her shirt would be as good as transparent, and thank God for the second bra that had been among the dead girl's things, because otherwise... His hands tightened ever so slightly where they rested at her waist, and for a flickering instant, she was certain that he was half a second away from renewing his grip and drawing her back against him. The wildness in his eyes was still there; the fear that had haunted it, however, had gone. In its place was an undiluted intensity that went straight to her knees. If he had been any other man looking at her that way, she would have been beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was about to lower his head and kiss her.

The desire hit her with the force of a fucking freight train. She could actually feel her own pupils blow wide as the heat pooled low in her belly, deep and knife-sharp, making her breath come short and her thighs press together to alleviate the sudden liquid throb between them. 

The drum of her pulse was deafening in own ears, and she knew he could hear it, knew he could feel the curl of her fingers against the thick bone at the base of his elbow where she had filled her hand with his shirt. She was more confident than ever that he didn’t know what it meant, for there was disquiet bordering far too close to the edge of confusion in the tiny frown-like creases around his eyes. And honestly, she was probably freaking him out something fierce. It was just…

Normal, modern men did not look at women like that. Not with such earnest ferocity, as if everything he  _was_  had been narrowed down to nothing but her.

Did they?

Heck if she knew. She was so twisted up by everything she had seen and been through in the past few months that she didn’t know if she could accurately recollect what normal was anymore. She had been so molded by culture norms and expectations that she now equated certain gestures and emotions as signals of specific things – dislike, indifference, attraction – when just as often they meant something entirely different depending on context. Obviously he cared about her. He wouldn’t have been radiating that low-level terror like a seismograph otherwise. The point was, just because he’d formed an attachment to her didn’t meant anything beyond just that. She was projecting, and  _he_  was trying to determine whether she was going to have another meltdown.

It took resolve and excruciating effort to step from his grasp without stumbling, but she managed somehow; measuring her breaths and carefully controlling every distinct muscle movement it took to turn around and return to her laundry. 

As she made to walk back out to the rock serving as her work-surface, he had gripped her by the wrist, stopping her instantly. It had been reflex; she knew that. He was already removing his hand by the time she glanced over her shoulder to reassure him, clearly understanding that she would be all right, even if she were to fall again. But knowing didn't stop her from trembling on the inside like the world's biggest idiot. Even as he let her go, she found her mind spiraling back to the night of her last failed attempt to run, specifically the lightning quick moment where she had halfheartedly thought he would pick her up and haul her back against a tree. It had startled her before – scared her, even. The only thing that scared her now was how badly she wished he would do it.

Rattled, Whitney clambered back to the rock on unsteady legs, her knee-joints so compromised that it was a goddamn miracle she didn't simply collapse halfway there. 

She had never been this turned on so quickly over so little. Scratch that, she had never been this turned on. Ever. He hadn’t done anything but  _look at her_ , but even in spite of the wet clothes she knew her underwear would be slick with the evidence of it. God, what would it have been like had he actually  _done_  something?

It was a good thing that she only had a few more things to wash, because she wasn't sure she could have made it much longer without simply vibrating out of her own skin, she was so jittery.

She didn’t noticed he had slipped off into the trees until after she finished washing, wading back to shore and looking up to find him walking back – moving in a way that reminded her of a wary dog. Guilt bathed her in a nauseous rush. Whether it had been the fall or her following weirdness, or a combination, she must have really wigged him out if he’d had to step away.

His coat was still in a heap upon the ground where he’d tossed it in his rush to her. Ducking, she picked it up smoothing away the bits of grass and moss that clung to it before holding it out to him. 

“Are you ok?” she asked softly.

He nodded as he took the coat, but it came slowly, as though it had been a considered response rather than the natural one. 

“I’m sorry I scared you. I would have been all right—”

His eyes flicked briefly to the stream before shooting her a look that conveyed quite clearly that while yes, she had been that time, it had not been a guarantee. And he wasn’t wrong. People had drowned in far less water before. She had been trying to be reassuring, but now she felt like her words had made light of something distinctly not. 

“You’re right,” she conceded, “it wasn't a given. I'm sorry.”

He averted his gaze, looking down at the coat he held again as though unsure why it was there. He seemed a little lost, as if he had just witnessed something awful and was trying to remember how the world was supposed to work. And could she blame him? It didn't matter how much time had passed, how many years. Post-traumatic stress never really went away. It wasn't simply a memory that could processed and filed away like a piece of data in a computer file, it didn't soften and blur around the edges as the days passed to become rosier and lighter to bear. It didn’t fade. Post-traumatic stress was  _scarring._  It altered lives just as it altered minds, severely, and forever. He couldn't even talk about it, couldn't vent or think aloud, or even scream. The outlet had been lost to him.

She wondered if he had always been nonverbal, whether it was a symptom of birth or from the trauma. She wondered if it was a physical thing, a result of damaged vocal chords or a synapse disconnect, or whether it was psychosomatic. Maybe it was a choice. Maybe he had been forced to associate speaking with mistreatment, or maybe he had been alone for so long that he had forgotten how. 

It wasn't a question she would ever ask, no matter his apparent mood. It was neither her business, nor a subject she had any desire to subject him to. 

Hefting the washing into her arms, she began: “I need to lay these out so they can dry, and then I need to eat something. But maybe we could read a bit after? And I could fix that tear,” she offered, pointing to the coat he was holding somewhat awkwardly between both hands.

He granted her another brief nod, folding his coat over the bend of his arm before he turned and started off.

She trailed far behind him on the way back. As far as she could without causing him to pause and wait for her, offering him the space he seemed to need. It wasn't a pleasant walk. She loathed the sensation of being in wet clothes on a good day – the clammy weight of them, the way her jeans chafed at the insides of her thighs and the backs of her knees, the way her soaked shirt kept riding up around her waist. She was about eighty percent dry by the time they made it back to the house, eighty-five by the time she had laid out her clean clothes on the grass to dry in the sunshine (underwear included, because who was there to see?). 

Though Jason had asked if she wanted to change, indicating the state of her clothes with a brief sweeping motion before pointing to the bag of clothing, she turned the suggestion down. She had wanted to, and rather badly, but it seemed a better option to stay as she was. Changing would just cause her to fixate on what had happened, and she was trying her damndest to do the very opposite. Besides, they were mostly dry anyway. 

He brought her crackers and canned vegetables to assuage the hunger she'd mentioned, which she had wolfed down between examining and mending the tear in his coat. It had required patching, which she had accomplished by ripping out part of the thick lining down by the bottom hem where the two halves had already been separating. Though far from a clean job, the stitches held when tested – which would have pleased her sutures instructor. 

When she handed it over, Jason examined the little patch, turning the garment over in his hands. He seemed to find it satisfactory, for he slid it back on a moment later, which Whitney mourned silently to herself. 

He still seemed agitated, so she suggested they go back outside to read. While he didn't so much as agree, he didn't protest, either. She quickly grabbed a new book and dragged him to the little open glade that had quickly become a favorite spot, shady and cozy and far away from any source of water.

Sitting with her back against the huge, ancient fir at the eastern edge, she kicked off her shoes as she always did and cracked open the book. 

_Charlotte's Web, by E.B. White._

There was a reason she had selected this one for their next book. For one, it had not originally been among the contents of the crate he'd originally brought her. Up until a few days ago, it had been living on the squat little shelf in Jason's childhood bedroom, gathering dust alongside its brethren, until one morning it had appeared atop the neat stack of volumes they hadn't yet read, innocuous and clear of dust. She had recognized the faded cover, knowing instantly where it had come from. Aside from simply leaving it there, Jason hadn't drawn attention to it, content to wait until she saw fit to pick it up. Now seemed a good time. Not only because clearly he had wanted her to read it at some point, but because he still seemed rattled by his scare and she really just wanted to do something for him – what little something she could in her position.

He settled next to her as she flipped through the blank pages at the front of the book, placing the machete in the grass beside him so it wouldn't accidentally stab him in the leg.

The weapon was almost always nearby, if not at the ready – right there strapped to his thigh, within reach distance – with the exception of perhaps three times that she could recollect. She had originally thought it was there to serve as a reminder, a subtle threat telling her not to be an idiot. After a while she had come to believe it was part tool and part comfort object, an unusual cross between a Swiss Army knife and a good luck charm. After seeing the scar at his throat, she wondered now if he had ever been wary when he’d approached her without it; whether he had worried she might try to hurt him as that other camper or traveler had fought back and – by no small miracle – managed to wound him.

" _Before Breakfast,_ " she read, when she was interrupted by a bird's musical call. She glared mockingly up at it as it flitted from one tree to another, sniping, "excuse you." 

She might have imagined the minuscule sound of amusement from beside her, though she hoped she hadn't. 

" _Before Breakfast,_ " she began again. “’ _Where's Papa going with that ax?' said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.  
'_ _Out to the hoghouse,' replied Mrs. Arable. 'Some pigs were born last night.'_  
_'I don't see why he needs an ax,' continued Fern, who was only eight._  
 _'Well,' said her mother, 'one of the pigs is a runt. It's very small and weak, and it will never amount to anything. So your father has decided to do away with it.'"_

And therein lay the other reason she had decided to begin this particular book, for there was a reason he had brought it to her. A reason which she suspected had something to do with the meaning it had for him. Her guesses, either his mother had read it to him, that he associated it with her and therefore comfort and love, or else he felt a connection to it for his own sake. Perhaps that he, too, had been or felt small and weak as a child, felt useless, unimportant, as Wilbur the pig had been. Or maybe he just liked the story. Not everything had to have some deep, intrinsic meaning. 

Though she had a strong feeling this happened to. 

They spent the majority of the afternoon that way, her reading aloud while he listened, alternating between watching the subtle life patterns of the woods and watching her face as she talked. She read until the words began to go hoarse. She would have kept going, too, if he hadn't reached across the space and laid a massive hand across the pages to block them. She had peered at him, an assurance ready on her tongue, which he had countered with a stern look. He tapped at his throat, clearly not willing for her to abuse her voice. It was such a clear resurgence of normal behavior that she gave in without protest, pleased that he seemed to have recovered at least enough for that. 

They walked for a little while after that, Jason checking snares, all of which were empty, and resetting a bear trap which had been triggered – which had also been empty, thank god. She was still harboring a strong amount of dislike where they were concerned and kept a wide berth, watching the thing narrowly out of the corner of her eye as though it might acquire the consciousness and freedom of motion to leap across the space and chomp her arm off. 

He sent her a questioning look as he returned to where she waited; though she wasn't sure why until his fingertips brushed her wrist and she looked down to see she was gripping the book so tightly that her knuckles had gone white. 

"Oh..." She forced her grip to soften, feeling the effects of it all the way up to her shoulder muscles. "I'm ok," she promised, "I just—don't like the traps very much." 

He glanced back at the trap, reset and veiled with brush and leaves, then back to her, dawning comprehension in his blue-grey eyes. He reached again, skimming tentative fingertips across the back of her hand in a touch that seemed almost...apologetic?

Whitney tilted her head, subconsciously echoing the motion he might have used to indicate curiosity or confusion. He was looking at her hand where it was folded about the spine of the book, not at her, and thus it was difficult to identify what might have been going on behind the shield of fiberglass. She couldn't be sure she wasn't only imagining the air of regret, or of guilt. Yet he seemed to be trying to communicate something, and was struggling as he rarely seemed to. 

Slowly she let go of the book, cautiously stretching out her hand until the tips of her fingers brushed his; and when he rewarded her by closing his hand around hers, enclosing it within the warmth of his grasp, she felt her heart go tight with emotion. He squeezed her fingers once, ever so gently, before allowing her hand to slip from his, and she was more than certain now that it  _had_  been a sort of apology. He remembered just as clearly what she had seen – and touched – that night, and had had no difficulty connecting it with her slightly unhealthy concern. What was more, he obviously felt  _bad_ about it, which was touching, if unnecessary. She no longer blamed him for the things he'd done. They had been awful, and nothing could change that, but she understood better now why he had done them. He didn't need to feel bad about doing what he felt he had to do, or what he thought he was supposed to do. That he did was just further evidence as to how decent he was. How different from everything she had imagined him to be.

She experienced a swift pang of regret, wishing she could manipulate time and change all the bad things that had happened to him. People rarely genuinely deserved the suffering they faced, and while he was no more or less _deserving_ than anyone else, it hurt her heart that someone so naturally inclined toward gentleness had been robbed of the life he might have had but for the ignorance and intolerance of others. He fell into step next to her as she started walking, something he wouldn't be able to keep up for long since the paths they took were often too narrow to accommodate more than one body at a time. While it lasted, though, she savored the sense of companionship. Of togetherness.

Her hand tingled where his had touched it, as though the warmth from his skin had been trapped there, and it was…nice. It was absurd and ridiculous, no doubt. But it also felt normal in a way she hadn’t felt in a long, long time. She felt almost young again – returned to her actual age instead of weighed down by the mantle of someone twenty years older. She felt like a freshman mooning over the cute senior she sat behind in chemistry, caught up in something new and exciting and far beyond her reach.

It was an odd thing to fit her mind around. He was everything nice girls like she supposedly was were supposed to steer far and clear from: clear evidence of psychological damage, no job, no awareness or care of personal upkeep, still living in his mother’s house, not to mention the killing people part. He had _bruised_ her. And yet none of these things were putting her off much, if at all. Not even the bruising, which she had always established as a hard line she would not tolerate the crossing of. She shouldn’t _want_ to be any kind of together with him. There innumerable reasons not to. Yet there was not a single one she couldn’t counter with a reason why it shouldn’t be held against him.

Almost none of it had been his fault, or even his choice. And the things he had chosen were no longer things she could entirely fault him for, now that her time out here in the wild had skewed her outlook to something slightly savage. As to the bruising…well, it had been harm done rashly, in ignorance and uncertainty, and without other visible choice. It hadn’t been ok, but it was forgivable once learned from.

People really were complicated. None more so than infatuated girls.

And that’s all this was – an infatuation. A very visceral and physical one, yes, but it would pass just as all the others had in time. Even if he'd been a regular guy, and even if he'd been interested in her too, she wasn't ready for any of that. She might not have had a chance to break up with Mike, but she was technically fresh out of a relationship, not to mention all the other baggage she was carrying around. None of that made for good girlfriend material. Still…

She thought back to the way he had pulled her from the water. Only seconds had passed between her fall and his hauling her out – mere  _seconds_ – and he hadn't been all that close. He couldn't have so much as hesitated, simply gone charging in after her, straight into the thing he had more reason to fear and loathe than anything she had ever experienced. Were she to look down, she knew she would see the legs of his pants were still damp. 

She wasn't altogether sure she didn't fall just a little in love with him for it.

*

**Day 36 (Day 1 of Week 6)**

To the casual observer, the woods were just that – woods. Old, dense, remarkably untouched at a time when such a thing seemed almost beyond possibility, and for the most part relatively uninteresting. But then there were many things that went beyond the notice of the casual observer.

Nine times out of ten those that visited Crystal Lake didn’t realize where they were. They were unfamiliar with the area and therefore its history; didn’t know to keep a lookout for abandoned mining tunnels nor the hazards that accompanied land once subject to such an industry. They didn’t know to watch where they put their feet, lest they walk into a broken mine pit, or the teeth of a trap.

Nor did they realize there were weapon caches all around the grounds of the Crystal Lake territory.

A result of a surplus of time and having been caught off guard and unprepared one too many times, the caches consisted of waterproofed bundles buried and marked with a series of small stones that would appear random to any eyes other than Jason’s own. Inside the bundles were extra blades, projectiles, lengths of rope and wire, and anything else he had accumulated over the years that might come to be of use in an emergency. He checked them once every four months, unearthing each to look for wear or water damage, testing edges and replacing anything no longer useable.

Well, he normally did.

The task was a lengthy one, eating up over a day and a half if he was as thorough as he liked to be. The better part of one if he wasn’t. Which was precisely why this particular check was roughly two weeks overdue.

Jason glanced up from the bundle he had just finished going over, checking the depth of the shadows around him. It was late afternoon now, the light gone rich and golden with it.

It had been a long time since he had been away from Whitney for more than a few hours, and he was no longer entirely comfortable with it. In the beginning it wouldn’t have concerned him. He would have left her plenty of food and water and got on with things until he was done. As time had progressed however, and as he’d grown increasingly more attached to her, his concerns had become less about her general wellbeing and more about his own sense of what was acceptable. Which, as it turned out, appeared to be leaving her alone for too long.

It was the height of summer, the time when the possibility of campers and hikers was at its highest, he couldn’t shirk the duty any longer.

He supposed he could have brought her along. Yet every time he’d considered the idea, weighing the prospect against that of leaving her underground for an entire day, he had disliked it more than the last. The grounds were expansive, he would be traversing much more grueling terrain than normal, and he had to move quickly in order to cover the distance he had to in order to get back by nightfall. The risk of exhausting her and of dehydration, to say nothing of injury, had been very real. In the end he’d elected against it. And he felt the absence of her keenly as he might have felt a hole in his side.

He had grown accustomed to her being there; sometimes talking, most of the time a quiet presence nearby. Too accustomed, perhaps. A few weeks ago that would have bothered him, now he wasn’t sure he could bring himself to care. Now he missed her nearness, missed her occasional soft outbursts of discovery, the stories which might follow. He just missed her, even in spite of the unsettled feeling the reality of that sparked in the pit of his stomach.

Wrapping the contents of the cache back up in the heavy oilcloth, he tucked it back inside the shallow hole, swiftly piling earth and stones atop it. If he kept to this pace he could work the rest of the way around the lake and get back to the house before the sun had fully reached the horizon. The rest could wait a few more days.

He had made it half a mile when the sound reached him; a low, reverberating hum the likes of which he hadn’t heard in a long time. So long that it took him a moment of listening to identify it for what it was – the sound of a motor.

Coming from the lake.

Though another was closer, Jason backtracked all the way to the cache he had just reburied. If he would be dealing in any near proximity to the lake, he wanted something with range. Moving swiftly he clawed away the dirt and extracted the bundle, his hand closing around the bow and sheaf of arrows.

The noise grew progressive louder and more obnoxious the nearer he came, growing from a low drone to a rattling whine that wore on the ears. He tracked the sound to the southern end of the water, his focus fanned wide in case there were people about aside the ones causing the ruckus. Its source was a boat, a gasoline-powered streak of white and black and yellow. There were only two people that he could see; one inside, driving the metal beast in wild, arcing loops, and one being dragged along behind by a string, skimming across the surface of the water like a dragonfly.

Jason felt a chill work down his spine at the sight, the dislike strong enough to taste. People were bad enough. But to get to them, even from afar, he would have to get closer to the water.

He was _not_ pleased about the amount of time he had been spending near water of late.

It took some to scout out a niche close enough to where the boat was drawing its drunken loops and still well away from the edge. Planting his feet, he nocked an arrow, folding his fingers around synthetic fletching where it met the bowstring.

And he waited.

He was a good shot – a _very_ good shot – but even he had his limits, and the distance between himself and the boat was not insignificant.

The figure trailing behind went sprawling into the water with a splash, and the boat turned in response. Still he waited, tracking the path of the boat until it began to swing nearer his position. Then nearer still.

He raised the bow, drawing back the string with a smooth bend of the elbow. Comfortable, fluid. It had not always been so. He had poured time and sweat into the effort to learn, until the weight of the draw had become like second nature, and now that he was grown it was easier still. Easy as breathing. The memory of it was etched so deeply into his muscles that he barely had to think to aim, barely had to feel for the shot before it came. His fingers parted, releasing the string upon a shallow exhale.

The arrow landed perfectly, spearing right through the skull of the figure on the boat like a javelin.

A part of him almost mourned that he was too far off to hear the crunch.

The figure crumpled forward into the controls and the boat sped faster, aiming straight for the second person bobbing along in the choppy waves, cheering happily, clearly not realizing their friend was dead. He was fairly certain this one was a girl, though it was difficult to be sure until the instant prior to the boat colliding with her and the shrill pitch of her screams elevated above the roar of the motor. From where he stood, it almost looked as though the thing struck her in the head. He supposed it was too much to hope that the impact had killed her…

Slipping a second arrow from the rest Jason put it to the string, but he did not draw.

The boat driver had been on a relatively even surface and moving at an even speed, both of which he could calculate and adjust accordingly. Water did not move in ways he could follow accurately, and the girl was thrashing about to stay afloat, erratic and unpredictable. He couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t simply waste the arrow. Not at this distance. Not unless she came ashore.

She turned her head first one way, then the other, likely trying to relocate the boat which had sped off down the lake surface to the west. Blood streaked her forehead, confirmation that she had, indeed, been struck there.

He knew the second she saw him. Her eyes narrowed at first, trying to make out his shape, before widening so much that he could differentiate the whites of them from the irises all the way from the tree-veiled shore. She went briefly still, as though the prey-instinct buried somewhere deep in her insipid brain had told her she might yet go unseen. Not half a second later the pitch of her thrashing increased, and he forwent any lingering hope that he might still be able to dispatch her from where he stood.

Letting out a breath of frustration he lowered the bow and remaining arrows to the ground. Even though he had neither hope of reaching her nor any intention of going after her he unsheathed the machete at his side, almost exclusively to feel the comforting heft of it, the familiar weight like an extension of his own arm.

“What do you want from me!” he heard her screech, gurgling the question that really wasn’t so much a question as a demand.

It made him think of Whitney, how she, too, had thrown those words at him, over and over in those early days.

The girl took off with a wail and a flailing kick of legs, swimming off in the opposite direction, and a low hint of a growl rumbled from deep in his chest. Soundless, but menacing.

He would have to trail her, wait for her to come on land so he could deal with her properly.

Within the boundaries of his own mind he cursed long and loud, with all the words he had learned over the years that he wasn’t supposed to think, let alone use, resigning himself to the fact that his plans for the day were long lost.

Slipping back a few yards, he immersed himself in the foliage. Masked from sight, he paced alongside from the water’s edge as she swam, her body cutting a crooked, wavering line as she searched for a safe place to emerge. In some places where the trees grew too thick he followed exclusively by sound – reckless splashes and screechy, panicked sobs. As the minutes passed her movements grew more and more erratic, intending, it seemed, to kill herself in the effort of escape. Jason began to worry the blood he’d seen on her face had indeed been indicative of head trauma.

Whatever his feelings about people, drowning was not a death he wished on even the foulest of them. Besides, it was getting late. The sun was starting to dip low, angling its descent toward the horizon.

 _Come to shore,_  he bid silently. _Come to shore, make it quick._

She straggled on for the better part of an hour, her stokes slowing until they became little more than staggered bursts interspersed with long bouts of treading water. When finally – _finally_ – she veered toward land it wasn’t to clamber to shore, but rather to duck under a little dock set within a shallow cove along the lakeside that had, he thought, once been used for swimming.

She was trying to hide herself, either in the hopes he wouldn’t see, or maybe that he might tire of searching and leave her. A pointless effort, but one for which he was grateful nonetheless. He wasn’t keen on setting foot on the wood planks. Not at all. Yet this wasn’t _the_ dock. And it didn’t extend far out.

He eyed it dubiously from the shelter of thick brush, trying to determine whether he should risk it. From the looks of it the wood had been well treated last, for he could see no obvious signs of rot. He had a choice. Either he could wait her out, or he could end it. Again he shot a glance to the sky. The sun was low enough now that it was encroaching on evening, and he still had the other body to deal with...

A hard breath forced its way between his teeth. At the worst it broke beneath him and he got his legs wet. There were worse things.

That was what he told himself, at least.

Jason did his best not to look at the water as he stepped out onto the dock. It was still as glass, mirroring his distorted excuse for a face back at him. Shielded by the mask though it was, he would always see what lay beneath, no matter how thick the covering. His first steps were cautious, somewhat cowed by the creak of the wood, but the dock held strong and sturdy beneath his feet, and after a few more steps he allowed some of the tension to uncoil from between his shoulders.

His fingers traced down the gleaming edge of the machete as he listened. He could make out the shallow, panting pattern of her breathing, the lap of water against malleable substance as she moved and he waited, using the combination of sounds to identify the precise spot under which she hunkered. Hoping she was safe.

She had never been safe.

Swiftly he turned the blade in his hand and brought it sharply down between the planks, slicing neatly through skull and deep into the brain.

That was where he left her, to the water; to become food for the living things there and eventually disintegrate back into so much formless matter. Whether the blood was spilled on land or not, the tithe was still paid. The job still done.

But now the day grew short. The girl had proven far more trouble than she should have been, and there was still the issue of the other body.

It took him at least an additional half hour to follow the lakeside west to where the boat had run itself aground, wedged in the crook of a great tree that – due to some happenstance of nature – had grown to lean out over the water at an angle. The engine was still going, though it spluttered and choked as it rapidly burned through fuel.

The very last thing he wanted to do was get on it. There was absolutely nothing tolerable about the prospect of bobbing about on top of the source of his own death. But he didn’t know what else to do. He could leave the girl’s body to the lake. It would become unidentifiable in a matter of days, concealing itself. Even the boat itself he could leave where it died. Any possible investigation would run itself cold before it could get anywhere…but only if he removed the second body.

It was possible the risk was only in his own head. He knew little of how such an investigation might be done, and even if one was conducted, it was also possible that those who came to do the conducting would know to leave well enough alone. But he couldn’t guarantee that. And now…even an imaginary risk was one he was staunchly unwilling to take, water be damned.

He used what remained of an old tire swing as an extra precaution against falling, not trusting his own balance purely for the anxious quaver in his pulse. Wrapping the end of the rope around a hand he tugged sharply, testing the hold of the branch and, as satisfied as he could be, he braced a foot against the trunk and climbed up into the belly of the thing.

The body had slumped to the floor by now. It was that of a young man, shaggy hair rendered an unappealing shade of orange from the blood that had soaked into it.

The first thing he did was remove the arrow – a task made somewhat less easy than it might have been now that the blood and brain matter were cold and clotted. It came free with a scraping squelch, and he tucked it away to return to the rest later.

Not wanting to spend any longer aboard than he absolutely had to, Jason hauled the corpse from the floor and heaved it over the side where it hit the ground at a stiff, awkward roll. He scrambled after it. Scrambled being the most accurate way to describe the speed and ungainliness at which he removed himself from the jostling vehicle. And after which he took a moment to thank the ground for being so exquisitely solid. 

He left the corpse where it lay for a few minutes while he detoured to the nearest cache for something to wrap it in, returning with a dirt-caked length of burlap that was slightly too short to completely enclose the head in addition to the body, but would do well enough. 

Once wrapped and tied as thoroughly as he could get it, he hauled the body over a shoulder and headed for the house.

By now it was well into evening, and Jason was bordering on irritability. Due to the interruption, he had not finished the task he had set out for himself, which meant he would have to devote yet another whole day just to catch up, let alone the extra half it would require to get through the caches he had originally planning to save for later. Which meant yet _more_ time he would have to leave Whitney alone in the tunnels with nothing but cold soup and rats for company. 

No, indeed. Jason was not at all pleased.

At the exact moment of sunrise and sunset the world changed. There was a fraction of a second’s worth of time in which the gradual increase or decrease in light jumped forward in a swift burst of luminescence or darkness – the birth, or death, of the day.

The shadows deepened sharply, the deep blue tones of twilight turning the sky to a bruised shade of yellowed-violet, and Jason quickened his pace. He made to cut through the campground rather than taking the long way around it, the blackened facades of the empty cabins leering like great, still beasts in the dark.

He was nearing the rack of canoes when something caught his eye, a pale spot amidst the dark earth and grass.

Assuming it to be an animal, he went to it, head cocked to one side when no movement was forthcoming. Tossing the body to the ground with a muted crunching of what might have been spine, he reached for it, his hand brushing rough cloth and synthetic strapping.

A bag?

His jaw tightened, irritation tipping rapidly toward temper. He and Whitney had come through this way just that morning on their routine trip to the outbuilding, and this had not been here. Nor had the smell. Sweat and chemicals, something…sugary and slightly too-sweet. Skin. Perfume.

There were others.

Dropping the bag with a heavy thump he turned on a heel and stalked to the power-box situated at the backside of one of the middle cabins – the one connected to the overhead lights.

He assumed the lights had been installed for the sake of nighttime illumination, so no one got lost or hurt or wandered too far out in the dark. Or perhaps for emergencies. They, like the camp’s water, were somehow still connected to power, and when he threw the switch they flooded the path and surrounding area with a coarse and brilliant yellow light. It would be harder to run, harder to hide.

He went straight back to the canoes, seizing the one on the topmost rack and throwing it to the ground. Then the second, and the third. Each hunk of metal struck the ground with an ugly screech that would have startled even the most steadfast of night creatures. Yet nothing moved. Not by the canoes or the cabin beside them, not in the spaces between, nor behind him. No sounds could be heard but for the usual night noises of the woods.

They had been there, he was sure of it. And if they had gone, then they hadn’t gotten far yet. He wouldn’t still be able to trace the smell of them if they had.

He couldn’t linger. Before anything else he had to see to Whitney. Still, it grated at him not to immediately initiate a search. 

Lifting the boat driver’s body Jason slung it back across his shoulder. Bending again, he snagged the pack by one of its straps to take with him in the vague hope it carried either clues with which to find the owner, or else something equally useful.

Casting a last, searching look out into the quiet trees, his lips drew back from his teeth in a silent snarl.

 _I_ will _find you,_ his exhale hissed.

He had their scent. Death was not far now.

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First things first: credit to E.B. White for the segments of "Charlotte's Web."
> 
> Hot damn this ended up being a long-ass chapter. That wasn’t intentional, but the first three quarters of it kind of got away from me, so…you’re welcome! Somehow I don’t think anyone’s going to mind the fluff. 
> 
> Also, I apologize if the last scene is kind of meh…it’s intended to be setting mood. I struggled with it a lot because I couldn’t figure out what to cut and what not to and I kind of wanted it to be a little monotonous because that’s the point, and I kind of just cranked the end part out because I wanted to get a move on. I also apologize for any errors, it only got one run-through edit. 
> 
> Storytelling foreshadowing cliché is cliché and I don't care!
> 
> OMG GUYS WE’RE HERE!!! I’m counting day one of week six as filling the canon timeline and no one can tell me different!  
> Quick sidenote: in the film it’s pretty evident to me that the “omg he’s got a dead body” is Donnie (aka Redneck McNasty), as you can deduce by the plaid shirt and general state of having no head. Since I offed Donnie way back as a means of getting the mask earlier (god the timeline in this movie is hot garbage) I reworked it so that he’s carrying Nolan back instead, who still has his head, but I’d imagine it would set just as much panic into Jenna if she sees it’s her friend with a hole in his head instead of a headless dude. 
> 
> Also, I hadn’t intended to talk about this yet, but considering the direction the first two thirds of this chapter drove itself I think it’s a good time. I’m basing my Jason pretty heavily on Derek Mears, the actor/stuntman that plays him in the reboot – and yeah, that’s a given to some degree, but I’m leaning into it pretty hard as far as the physicality goes. This is why he has blue eyes, fun fact. So Derek is an MMA fighter and pretty built, which would not be accurate for someone who doesn’t work his body in the specific ways it takes to formulate that particular musculature. Therefore, as Whitney mentions briefly last chapter, Jason’s not going to have that gym-perfect chest and abs, etc. He’s strong, but he’s not “ripped” as we tend to visualize it. But for the sake of brevity: I adore Derek and how he portrays Jason, and I also have a bit of a thing for arms. So here we are. This is fanfiction - don’t @ me. 
> 
> On that note, I’m going to shut the hell up and keep going. I’ve listened to the same track from the 2018 Halloween movie on repeat for the past two hours and I’m still feeling the energy so I’m going to ride it until it stops.
> 
> Quick shoutout to every single person who has left kudos or sent me comments. It is not overselling it so say that you made me incredibly goddamn happy, especially since this isn’t exactly a hopping fandom right now. I adore you all so much. Internet kisses to all!
> 
> Until next time!


	13. Hemorrhage

* * *

 

 

She was really only vaguely aware of the passing of time. The light shifted around her with the onward crawl of the hours, brightening and warming to its peak before beginning the descent to evening as the rays streaming in through broken floors took on the luster of antique gold. But the day itself was one that seemed to both stretch on for far longer than it was and go by in a blink.

The morning had gotten off to a bit of an odd start. Jason had actually woken her for once, bringing down her food before the sun had fully risen, which he had never done before, and after rather sleepy trip to the bathroom he had brought her directly back to the tunnel as he hadn't done in weeks. He had done his best to explain, repeating gestures easily understood to mean  _I go, you stay_ , but which didn’t really tell her much. There had been definite frustration in his expression and his movements as he re-secured her manacles, a very stark dislike due in part, she thought, to that he had to do it and in part that he had no way to tell her why. She, for her part, had reassured him that so long as he promised to come back eventually, she would be fine. And she had been.

He had left her with plenty of food which, though cold, would have seen her through a good two days. Though she very much doubted he intended to leave her that long. She hoped not anyway, or her bladder would straight up burst. The greatest downside was simply that she now recognized how spoiled she had become with all the freedom she hadn't had before. Which was kind of a weird way to think about it, since she had never stopped being a captive, or hostage, or whatever the hell she was.

It was very possible she was no longer entirely sane. Oh well.

Whitney spent most of her day napping – which she would almost definitely regret when bedtime came around – and reading one of the not-your-grandmother’s-romance novels, complete with the moody, artfully Spartan cover depicting nothing more than a pair of cufflinks alongside a title she couldn’t recollect a split second after rereading it for the eighth time. Everyone always said books couldn’t be judged by their covers, but she had never found that adage to be true. One could always tell the particular kind of smut novel that took itself too seriously. As predicted, the book had been so awful that she laughed her way through almost all of it. Which, she supposed, was a feat in itself. Not the intended effect, perhaps, but an effect nonetheless.

The boredom set in somewhere late in the afternoon. She had been slowly making her way through a bowl of soup at the demands of her stomach – a surprisingly delightful potato variety that would have been almost excellent when heated – and trying to think of what to do for the rest of the night. 

She wished she had thought to ask Jason when he would be back. Maybe not exactly like that, but she could have asked if he would be back tonight, or tomorrow. She didn’t have to pee yet, partly because she had been neglecting the water again, but she wasn’t above admitting that it felt weird not having him close by. It was hard to know at what point she should start to worry. Not that she supposed she had much reason to worry, considering he was the baddest thing in the woods. But knowing it wouldn’t stop a born worrier.  

She had descended to trying, somewhat halfheartedly, to train one of the rats how to play fetch, although so far she had only managed to get it to chase after raisins sent rolling across the floor and to return to her. They were working on the bringing the raisin back instead of eating it first part when some of the bells overhead gave an abrupt jangle.

Peering up at the ceiling she scanned the wooden beams, trying to pinpoint which set had gone off. 

Aside from those two incidents, the bells had been quiet, to the point where she had almost forgotten they were there. Was it more nesting rabbits? Another animal stumbling across the tripwire? A second later more ringing came as the line of bells strung across a beam almost directly above her head began riotously and frantically dancing, almost as though someone had gripped the line and pulled.

Her pulse jumped, blood pressure spiking in eagerness and apprehension.

Multiple rings separated by silence implied that someone had tripped and then paused to investigate...but animals did not generally investigate the weird unnatural thing over which they tripped. Animals got the fuck out of dodge.

That wasn’t an animal.

Automatically her mouth dropped open...but no sound came. It was like she had forgotten how to speak, or else that her voice refused to be summoned. Why? Why wasn’t she yelling? There was another  _person_  out there – someone who could help her get out of here, help her escape, so why wasn’t she screaming herself hoarse in the effort to get their attention? Silence would not help her, and yet she did nothing. It wasn't even that she couldn't. She just  _didn't._  She just sat, listening, nothing on her tongue but her own breath.

There was a soft snuffling against the back of her hand where it lay clenched into a fist upon her lap, her rat friend come back in search of more raisins. She stroked it absently, letting her fingers fall open for the rodent to eat its fill all the while she gazed steadily – uncertainly – upward.

Minutes passed with no further ringing of bells. Or of any other sounds. They were probably gone by now, and with them her chance at freedom.

What the fuck had she just done? Why the  _fuck_  had she just sat there gulping like a suffocating fish? More importantly, why was she not significantly more upset about it than she was? Because she should have been. She should be kicking herself, knocking her stupid face into the wall…

The creak and thud of the trapdoor opening was long familiar by now, yet it startled her so badly that she actually jumped. Spooked, the rat scuttled away, leaving Whitney to clutch at the heart hammering frantically beneath her breastbone, scattering raisins across the dirt. Half a moment later Jason came around the corner, and she knew immediately that something was wrong. It was all over his posture; the slight downward tilt of his head and too-fluid joints, an eerie animal prowl that only ever surfaced in the face of a threat.

Specifically, she realized, the threat of people.

He bore the unmistakable shape of a human corpse, bound, wrapped up in an off-gray length of cloth, and folded over his left shoulder. Unlike the last body he had brought down here, this one still had its head – left visible over the edge of the cloth too short to conceal it entirely. She could see that it had been a young man in his early twenties, at the oldest, with hair she thought might have started out blond before it had become completely saturated with the blood which no longer oozed from the clotted wound in his forehead. A narrow, perfectly circular hole stood out there, as though he had been impaled upon a piece of doweling or rebar. Or an arrow shaft.

A chill rippled through her, one which had as much to do with Jason himself as it did the close proximity to the empty shell of what had once been a person. 

He was agitated. She could tell by the terseness in his stride, the sharp brevity of the look he cast her – little more than a cursory glance as if to check she was still there. Had something happened? Had he been injured? It didn’t look like it, but…

He carried something in addition to the body. A backpack dangled from his other hand, gripped loosely by the strap. He tossed it absently in the direction of the workbench as he passed and it struck the edge, falling to the floor. Jason either didn’t notice or care. He continued seamlessly on, disappearing behind the cluttered shelving and sturdy wooden beams into the corridor beyond where he had taken the first body, and after a moment she heard the heavy metal door she remembered from before shutting with a heavy, decisive bang.

Whitney blinked after him, stupefied, and more than a little anxious. She wasn't above admitting that the sight of another person dangling limp in his grasp like a puppet cut from its strings had a somewhat unnerving effect on her, regardless of why or how they had come to be there. It just did. Plus, she had no idea what he did with the bodies he brought down there, only that twice now he had done so, and that the first one had never come back out. Morbidly she supposed eating them wasn’t out of the question, but as he’d as good as said he didn’t really eat much – and keeping in mind the rate at which bodies would decay, especially in heat like this – she didn’t think it likely. Thank goodness because that would have ruined everything. Yet in her time there she had never caught even so much as a whiff of what might have been rotting flesh. Just earth and humidity, the food he brought her, her own sweat. He must leave them deep in the tunnel, far out of range.

There hadn’t been people on the grounds for a while. That she knew of. Because how would she know when she spent so much of her time down here? It was entirely possible he had dealt with more than just the two incidents after her own, yet he had never come back to her this way, moving like a big cat in the midst of stalking deer. Like death walking.

Her eyes dropped to the bag. It had rolled as it hit the ground and lay just a few yards away. Not a backpack, but a rucksack, khaki gray and a bit worn around the flaps and edges. And weirdly familiar.

Leaning as far as her chain would allow she stretched out a foot, hooking it over the back of the bag and dragging it toward her until it was close enough to grab. She pulled it into her lap, taking in the scuffs along one side of the front-most pocket, the greenish grass stain smudging the lip of the top flap. It was remarkably similar to one her brother had once had, even down to the deep side pockets and weather-protective leather base. So similar that it was almost eerie. 

The buckles securing the top flap were already undone, allowing her to flip it back and pull open the drawstring. There was a bundle of papers resting at the top, creased and bent at the corners as though they had been removed and put back, folded and refolded, at least a hundred times. She removed the entire stack, smoothing them open over her bent knee...

And was shocked to see her own face smiling back at her in the form of a photocopied photo.

Big bold letters at the top of the sheet read:  _MISSING,_  followed by her name and a description, and underneath, a plea to call with any information regarding her whereabouts. She was looking at her own missing person’s poster. Which meant the bag in her lap didn’t merely resemble the one she and mom had picked out for Clay one Christmas, it  _was_  his bag.

Clay was  _here,_  at Crystal Lake. Looking for her.

Whitney didn't know why the instant it hit her that her mind latched onto an image not of her brother, but of the mother they shared – just that it did. Ellen's face, tired and wan, yet still smiling from what was now the mere pretense of a bed draping a skeleton of hospital equipment. Bidding her to go, to have fun. Promising to be there when she came home. 

She had no reason to think it, after all, it was possible Mom had managed to get a hold of Clay when Whitney hadn't come home as planned, realizing something was wrong and sending him after her. But as much as Whitney wanted to cling to the fine, fragile threads of this possibility, her doubt was far too heavy for them to hold. Mom had had the same number she did, the same number that continuously went to voicemail and never called back. It was possible, yes. But as she turned her head to stare at her makeshift calendar – her tally of days, of weeks long gone – she experienced that cold, sinking sensation of loss and just knew.

It felt as though she had been force fed stones. Her stomach fell so low that it seemed to be pulling her down into the floor. Mom was gone. She was gone and Clay was...oh, God, Clay was _here._

Terror knocked into her with all the force of a kick to the ribs, so hard and fast that for a five full seconds she was sure she would throw up. She forced herself to swallow, forced air in through her nose and down into her lungs once, twice, and again, to stave off the panic trying like the devil to turn her vision black. 

Clay was still alive. He had to be. The body Jason had carried off like a load of laundry had been a stranger, too short and towheaded to be her brother, even if she hadn't seen his face. It hadn't been him, but it _could have_ been. It might be still. It might have been Clay that had triggered the alarm, which meant he might still be out there, combing the woods for his sister and not realizing the incredible danger he was in. Or so she was choosing to believe. Because if she allowed herself to imagine him lying somewhere out there bleeding his life out into the dirt she would lose her goddamn mind, and on the off chance that he was still whole her mind was the one thing she could not afford to lose.

Her eyes rose to the mouth of the passage into which Jason had disappeared, blocked from view and choked with shadow. 

It did not escape her just how much her perspective had changed since she had first come to be there, chained to this same wall. When she looked at her captor, she no longer saw a monster, no longer saw a sick, psychopathic bastard who relished the suffering he inflicted on his victims. He had never been those things. But just as she was aware of her own inner paradigm shift, so too was she aware that the man she had come to know was no more or less the killer than he had been then. His motives had not changed.  _He_  had not changed. 

The world had dealt him a brutal hand, misery after misery hand over fist, but people had been the epicenter around which all that misery revolved. They had taken everything from him. And still, after everything, she rather thought that had he been left alone, had his rage been allowed to calcify, to fade and flake away, he might have been satisfied with vengeance in its direct form.

But people kept coming. They kept setting foot on land that had become the sacred space of an angry god, disturbing it, defiling it, and thus he took his price in flesh and blood with his own hand. She no longer thought it unjust. Not entirely. Not anymore. She alone had seen the heart beneath the rage, the loneliness, the _exhaustion_. She had seen it in his sparing of her life and in his caring for her, in the fondness she no longer believed she was inventing when he looked at her. Still, her ability to now see those things did not erase what had been before it. He was still a predator; still the relentless hunter that had tracked her through dark forests to drag her back to her chains. Whatever she now felt about him or his reasons, he was still the man that had murdered her boyfriend in cold blood. And whatever he might or might not feel about her, she was neither so foolish nor naïve as to think that she might convince him not to kill again, even just the once. 

Oh, she could try to explain, to try reason, but she could not hope to prevail over a driving purpose that nearly predated her own existence, and there was no doubt in her mind that no matter what she said, no matter her excuse – if he found Clay, her brother would die. 

She had to get out. She had to find him before Jason did.

Stuffing the papers back into the bag Whitney whirled to face the wall and the metal ring to which she was tethered. She had already tried picking the locks to no avail and nothing within reach to try again, and even if there had been she was not confident in her chances of success. Short of breaking the chain, or pulling the ring straight out of the wall, she wasn’t going anywhere.

Gripping the chain close to the anchor point she leaned hard, putting the entirety of her body weight into it. There was a piercing  _screek_  of metal against metal that made her teeth ache, but no groan, no give, no crack or shift of rock. And of course there wasn't. She had known it was futile, hadn’t she? She didn’t have the strength or the mass to dislodge metal from stone. But once again she yanked, rising to her knees and bracing a foot flat against the base of the wall and pulling until the joints in her wrists and elbows strained and her shoulders screamed their protest. She pulled until she had to stop or else wrench her own arms from their sockets. It wouldn’t have mattered if she had; her brother was still going to die, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

Her hands went slack about the chain, links sliding between her fingers to pool upon the mattress as she sank back down onto her knees. Reaching, she gripped the rucksack. She wrapped her arms around it, coarse canvas scratching gently at her skin as she hugged it against her chest.

She had spent so much of the early days of her captivity fighting: physically and mentally. Spent so much time scheming and planning and screaming, burning through energy and emotion faster than she could generate more. By now she would have thought she had recuperated what she’d lost; tenfold now, since now it was more than her own life at stake. But as she knelt there, clutching the bag she had bought her brother – that she and her mother had stuffed with supplies and trinkets, maps and tools and silly, fun things – she felt wasted and drained, scraped as hollow as she had been after four days of constant stress and little nourishment. Just then, she didn’t have it in her to struggle or to rail against the world or circumstance, didn’t have it in her to do anything but stare into the emptiness, into the future she could not change.

She had thought she knew what hell was, but she hadn’t. She hadn’t been anywhere close.

This… _this_  was hell.

Her next inhale came upon a shudder, tears slipping from where they had gathered without her notice. As if from far away she could feel Jason approach. She couldn’t hear him except when he laid the machete down on the edge of her crate, for he moved with all the sound of a cat on carpet, could see him only once he drew near enough for his boots to enter the edge of her periphery. But she felt him; a calm, warm presence somewhere close smelling of earth and leather.

She looked up when he crouched beside her to find his head owlishly tilted by just a few degrees, his eyes framed by the soft creases of his frown. He was tentative as he reached out to touch her cheek, such a far cry from the terseness of a moment ago. His fingertips came away wet, and she could see the question in the way his gaze shifted between her, the dampness at his fingers, and the knapsack she clutched like a direct line to the oxygen keeping her alive – a question underlined by a faint note of panic. He had left her well and come back to find her crying. Why was she crying? But it was a question she could not answer. If she told him, only for him to go off and do it…

A new tear began the slow, curving journey down her cheek and he caught it, brushing it away with the stroke of a gentle thumb that very nearly broke her.

There was such pleading in his eyes now, begging her, imploring her to tell him what was wrong.  _I’ll fix it_ , he seemed to be trying to tell her,  _whatever it is I’ll fix it for you._ But that was only what she wanted to see. What she wanted to hear.

“Let me go,” she whispered, her voice wavering on a fine wire until it cracked. 

He wouldn’t; she knew that. But still she asked in the vain hope that maybe this time, maybe now, things might be different. 

“Please, Jason.  _Let me go._ ”

He might not have heard her for all the response she got. He didn’t move, didn’t so much as blink, simply stared at her with that same insistent pleading. 

Her temper flared, giving one final dying surge before the fuses gave way. “This is wrong,” she whispered, hating herself for the harshness of it. The words felt like acid in her mouth but she couldn’t swallow them, they simply scoured their way free, leaving her to lash out like a wounded thing full of fire and fury that were fumes more than they were substance. “This is selfish and wrong and _you know it._ ”

His eyes flickered with something she couldn’t interpret, something fierce and tender and terrifying all at once. Again his thumb brushed her face, softly tracing the arc of her cheekbone. So softly in fact that she hardly felt it, hardly had time to register the touch before he was rising to his feet, sliding the machete back into its holster, and turning from her. Turning to hunt her brother.

The sob was a force of its own making, wrenching itself deep from her gut and tearing everything in its path to get free. She knew he heard it, saw the hitch in his stride – subtle as it was – right before the pooling dark of the tunnel swallowed him whole. But it didn’t stop him. 

She didn’t have that power.

Hands fisting into the worn khaki canvas, she folded the bag tight against her stomach, curling around the point of pain wedged like a knife up under her ribs. By the time she heard the trapdoor creaking closed she was busy trying to hold herself together, sure that with her next breath, or perhaps the one after, would be the one to rip her apart.

* 

Jason’s steps fell silent as he made his way back to the canoes. He would start there, where he knew for sure they had been, and circle outward from there until he picked up on their trail.

Not if. Until. It was only a matter of time.

Almost compulsively he rubbed his fingers together where Whitney’s tears had dried upon his skin. He didn’t know what had happened, only that he had come back to find her crying when she had not been before, clinging to the bag he’d found.

It had been unlike anything he’d seen her do before in all the days she had spent fighting him. Then she had been vibrant, thrashing and snapping like a creature in a trap – which, she  _had_  been. But this had been still and silent and…empty. She had been devastated, and he didn't understand. He had touched her face, the skin of her cheek soft and pale as fresh milk, and he wasn’t sure he remembered the last time he had so deeply loathed his incapacity for speech the way he had when he’d touched her tears and begged her with his eyes to tell him what had hurt her. He had been shocked to realize that at some point her tears had developed the power not just to affect him, but to gut him completely.

 _“This is selfish and wrong and_ you know it. _”_

She had been angry with him.  _So_  angry. He had seen it in every stiff, rigid line of her slim body, her tight jaw. The sharpness of her tone had cut more deeply than he might have expected. And she was right, he  _was_ being selfish. He knew that. Of course she wanted to leave. Her life wasn't here with him, and his choice to keep her – fully knowing that – as if he could erase what was real simply by ignoring it, as if the longer he kept her the more she might want to stay there. With him. It was more than simply selfish, it was foolhardy in the extreme.

She hadn't asked in such a long time that he had found himself hoping. Of course, he had hoped before, only to have those hopes come crashing down around him when he'd come back to find her having fled, but then time has passed and whatever was between them had strengthened, warmed. He had no longer thought of her as a prisoner, or as a responsibility. She had become something else.

He wasn't sure if he was brave enough to refer to her as something so powerful as a friend, even if in his own mind. And now he supposed he should toss the possibility of it away for good. But he couldn't. Just...couldn't. Not the possibility of a friend, and not her.

No matter how wrong it was, he simply could not bring himself let her go. And as he’d knelt there beside her, loathing himself and his own silence, he had felt something rise up in him as the water had risen over his head all those years ago – powerful and all-consuming, and momentarily stronger even than the drive to hunt down the vermin desecrating this land of his mother's memory. The desire to stay. 

Even now, as he began his sweep out through the camp and into the wooded paths, he found himself fighting the urge to turn around – to go back.

To her.

In another life he might have been able to. In another life, subject to another fate, he might not have been this – this  _thing_  he had become. In another life he might have stayed. But it was much too late for that; his path was set, his duty written, and it could not be undone. The tithe  _must be paid_. No matter how much he wished he could do something, anything, else.

He found them by the blackened, crumbling remains of the totem pole, tracking them by the beam from a flashlight darting about like a maddened lightning bug. Another set of two – male and female – and, from the smell of them, the two for which he had been searching. They ran right past him a hair’s breadth out of reach, frantic breaths and heavy footfalls and nigh to reeking of fear. It would have been easy enough to catch them there, easy enough to end it, but he had thought it over the last time only to discover more, like roaches beneath the lid of a box that should have been empty. He would not make the same mistake again. And so he waited, watching from a careful distance as he tracked them through the western reaches of the territory. 

They fled for the better part of half a mile, unaware that they were being followed across the boundary between territories. They fled until they reached the edge of the trees, bursting from them as if clawing their way from the clutches of the wood, and it was here that Jason finally paused to take stock of the property, the house into which his quarry raced, staggering and out of breath. The door slammed behind them, and Jason snorted, derisive. As if a mere door could keep him out.

Following immediately was out of the question. First he had to secure the area, locate any stragglers outside. Then he would be free to deal with the house and its occupants.

He skirted the edge property along the tree line, keeping to the shadowy places so he would not be seen from the quite expansive windows and scanning as he went. It was a large house, modern, with lots of glass and stonework at the exterior. The grounds were likewise a product of expenditure, featuring a wide stone patio which led down the shallow hill upon which it sat in tiers. He identified the external electrical panel at a glance, noting its position relative to the door through which the two trespassers had entered. That was no issue. The main problem was that the house was of such a strange design that he couldn't logically gauge what the interior layout might be from the outside, which had the potential to make things more difficult for him.

The man-made pond at one edge of the property forced him from the tree line. He headed for the outbuilding just beside it – a shed of some kind – its open door allowing an anemic yellow light to escape. 

He slipped inside and was immediately met with the distinctly pervasive odor of alcohol, followed by the mutter of a single voice. Breathing past the fumes, he cocked his head and listened for a few seconds. Over the years he had developed the ability to distinguish sounds made by multiple people from those made by someone on their own. He could differentiate up to three different sources. After that it became difficult to isolate the amount of noise, but also became prudent to alter his approach. Four or more meant it was time to separate, isolate, and eradicate one at a time. It was quicker that was. Less messy. Fortunately, there was just the one in the shed.

Picking his way through the rows of open shelving Jason made his way toward the read of the building. He heard the harsh splinter and rainfall of breaking glass, and the light overhead began to swing from its cord, no more now than an exposed bulb. The mutters subsided to plaintive cursing as Jason came within view of the figure standing before a wall of tools. A boy, he thought, shorter and more slender by far even than Whitney was, staring balefully down at the broken glass littering the cement floor. He crept closer, lowering a hand to the knife at his belt and sliding it smoothly free.

No sooner had the boy begun to turn Jason had him by the throat, hauling him off his feet and bringing the blade up through the soft place behind the jaw. It was quick and silent, as he preferred his kills to be, and for a moment Jason merely held him there, waiting for the life to ebb into the twitches of dying neural-electric response before sliding the knife free and wiping it clean on the plaid shoulder of the boy’s shirt.

Swiftly and efficiently the body was tucked up into the rafters to be retrieved and dealt with properly later – the last thing he needed was someone else happening upon it unexpectedly and raising an alarm, after all – and he was slipping from the shed and around the back of the house.

Amidst the lazy music of crickets he approached the stonework exterior, eyes open and watchful for anyone else that might have been wandering about outside on a nighttime stroll. He would cut the power, he thought, and see how they responded. Most would send one or two out to investigate, out of some sense of safety, or so he gathered, and effectively doing the work of isolating a bigger group into easily-managed portions for him.

Light poured from an unveiled window and out onto the grass up ahead in a pool of liquid yellow. Almost more habitually than purposefully he drew back, making to step around the illuminated space. Movement from inside caught his eye and he spared a glance to take note of how many people might be there. It was crucial to figure out the number he was dealing with and where they all were. The more he knew in advance the more effective he could be, and the quicker he could be done with it.

Beyond the window was a bedroom, inside which were two more people – yet another pair, male and female. But that wasn’t what made his steps cease and his body go still.

They were sprawled upon the bed together, clothed in nothing but their skin. The girl was sitting astride the boy’s lap, and she was moving in a way Jason had seen many times before. It was something people seemed to do; sneak out into the woods together, strip down to their skin, and fall into a writing, groaning tangle of limbs.

Neither the nudity nor the activity were new to him; he had dispatched many a pair of trespassers thusly occupied in his day. Truth be told, he had no real opinion on the matter. Whether they did it or not they still had to die. He would, however, admit that he had never fully understood why they did it, or what the appeal was – and surely there must be some sort of appeal, or such a broad number of different people wouldn’t engage in something that looked so uncomfortable and frankly repulsive. What could be the allure of being wedged up against another person like that, sharing space and breath? What was the behind the drive to rub and strain against someone else, gasping and sweating, which they always did. It seemed an exertion of some kind, though he couldn’t figure out how. And it always just looked so…well,  _painful._

The nearest thing to which he could compare was when he had witnessed the occasional animal pair during their mating rituals. But that was always so straightforward. Quick and efficient, done with clear purpose during the proper season – not this long, drawn-out affair of rolling around and carrying on as if mauling one another. And if it wasn’t that, then what in the good earth was it?

These were old questions, long since filed away and unanswerable, if he had ever truly cared what the answers were. Or so he had thought. But even the old, half-forgotten curiosity wasn’t the reason he found himself robbed of his mobility and staring, caught up in the fluid, rolling motion of the hips belonging to the girl in the window.

No.

It was that for a split second his mind had taken the image of this girl and superimposed that of another in her place – with hips not quite so wide, hair slightly shorter, softly curled, reddish brown rather than gold. For a split second he was at the edge of the stream where she had been flush against him, the soft shape of her against his chest, his thighs. The gentle slope of her belly beneath his hand. He had felt her keenly through his clothes, the steady warmth of her flesh veiled by wet cloth, and all he had wanted in the world was to touch her; touch that narrow strip of skin between shirt and jeans, pull the twine from her hair until it fell down around her shoulders, her chest…but, no, that wasn't right. There was another word, a better word. It was slow to come to him, since it was vernacular merely overheard and not directly taught, but it did after a few moments spent with the image he had not realized was burned into his head with the permanence of a brand. Not her chest – her  _breasts._

Something inside him turned over, shifting like the plates of the earth during a quake. And just like that he could feel her, would have sworn he could _smell_  her even as he stood there outside the window of this strange house so far from her – mild and faintly floral and rich with that strange, musky sweetness. He could feel his own pupils dilate; feel the blood leaving his head so quickly that he experienced a dizzy flash of vertigo. He felt the slow, languid curl of heat uncoiling in the pit of his stomach, spreading like flame – like poison – rendering his breath shallow and his trousers tight about the groin. The kind of heat that turned metal to gold and then molten. 

It was the same ache from before, only so much more intense. Before it had been a niggling thing, like an itch, the sensation of a presence at his back. This was almost an entirely different creature, a force, a pressure that had his bones groaning like so much old wood, until it became not so much a yearning as a demand.

The girl in the window arched her back, the slim muscles framing either side of her spine leading like an arrow straight down to the rocking motion of her backside. But it was not her he saw, and it was not that perfect, golden boy beneath her but rather…

Pure shock sang along his veins like electricity, snapping him from his trance. He turned sharply from the window, staggering sideways until his hand met cool stone siding, all the while his skin flushed and burned and his head swam as though his brain had been submersed in dark water. He was shaking, from skull to the soles of his feet, and his pants…they seemed to have become tighter still. He knew what it was. Rather, he had experienced it before – this strange, purely physical sense of urgency which resulted in the flesh between his legs becoming stiff and swollen as though from an injury – though it had been a very long time since last he’d noticed it.

It had always seemed a random thing: a response to some biological imperative his flesh apparently understood even if his mind did not. Nor was it something it had ever occurred to him to act on, even just to give definition to the response. For one, it nearly always seemed to come up at inopportune moments wherein he couldn’t even if he wanted to, and for another such responses were always quickly put in check by exercise of combined focus and willpower – both of which he possessed in generous abundance. It had always been relatively easy to ignore, move on, and forget. And after those first two years or so it had simply stopped happening. Until just now, this very instant. All because of one random girl behind a window.

No, _not_ because of her. The blonde had simply been the trigger, not the real cause. 

Another image of Whitney flashed through his head: lounging in the shade beneath a tree, head tipped back to the dappled sunlight which turned her skin to honey and made her hair seem to burn, her long legs stretched out in front of her, bare to mid-thigh. A bead of sweat trailed down along the slim column of her throat and into the shadowed valley leading down between her breasts. 

In immediate answer the tightness increased, flesh suddenly straining against the cage of his clothing with a ferocity that transcended even the urgency of demand and tipped headfirst into need.

Jason had not felt true need for anything since before his death all those years ago. He no longer felt the pangs of hunger as he once had, nor the rasping parch of thirst. With minimal consumption came minimal requirement to empty bladder or bowels. He required no shelter, although he preferred to utilize it over simply dwelling amidst the elements – one needn't risk getting sick in order to not much care for standing in the rain, after all. He hadn't even felt truly lonely since very recently, though he had never really been able to tell if it had gone away or merely been silenced due to a lack of potential solutions to save himself the misery of its lack. Anything aside from the necessity of breathing, and the duties as eradicator, had gone from him. But _this_  was  _need._  He had no idea for what his body was currently screaming at him to provide for it – _screaming,_ loudly and with excruciating violence – but he could recognize it for what it was at the most basic level as that. 

He smoothed the palm of one hand down the tightness at his groin, willing it to subside. Which it flatly refused to do. If anything, the contact only made it worse, eliciting an angry throb that seemed to climb straight up into his spine – and a sharp, subsequent stab of alarm. 

What was this? What was the matter with him? He had never been affected this way before, with such insistent force. For that matter, he had never seen a couple in the midst of a writhing, sweating tangle and thought anything outside his normal range between anger and disdain. Yet he had seen those two perfect people inside just then, behaving no differently than countless other nameless, faceless others that had met the edge of his blade, and for the first time since he had emerged from the water the drive to end them as quickly and with as little fuss as possible had been completely overpowered.

In that moment all he had been capable of feeling was the incredible compulsion to turn around, leave them to their trespass and go straight back to the tunnel. He wanted to unlock the manacles from Whitney's wrists, pull her to her feet, sink his hands – his _face_ – into all that pretty coppery hair. He wanted...he didn't know what he wanted. He  _didn't know_. For all that his mind was clamoring with the upheaval of panic and horror and need, telling him to do at least six different things while his body could do nothing but twist itself into ever tighter knots.

What had been a strange and uncomfortable, but manageable phenomenon had suddenly eclipsed all of those things. Strange was now alien, uncomfortable was now excruciating, and it was nowhere near to manageable, but  _powerful_. So powerful that it was nearly all he could do not to obey, though he had no idea what obeying might mean.

The sense of wrongness welled up like bile, thick and rank at the back of his throat; the feeling of being trapped inside the flesh of a stranger. A stranger who understood what was happening, while he was left to flounder, adrift within his own mind. It wasas though his own body had betrayed him. But then, he supposed it had right from the beginning, the instant his killing blow refused to land.

Almost unconsciously his head angled back toward the window, mind working furiously. There was something important here he was missing – something about them, something about why it had been this particular trigger to spark this madness inside him. Something about the way seeing them had made him feel like a boy again, if only in his own mind, beaten until he bled for having the audacity to look too long at a pretty girl. 

Out of nowhere he felt the rage ignite, scraping like a match-head down the ridges of his ribs. Yet the result was not the usual cold fury of the directive, the honed, clear focus of his vengeance. It was hot, searing painfully bright within him as though his organs had been set aflame, charring from the inside outwards. His great hands curled into fists, the knuckles giving menacing cracks. His jaw clenched, back teeth grinding together until he felt the ache of it travel down his neck. He was _not_  that boy. Not anymore. And those children, these people, were nothing. They were vessels of wasted life worth less than the dirt they soiled, and they  _did not_  rule him.  _He_  was in control, not them. He would sooner cleave his own insides from his body than allow them such supremacy over him ever again. 

Dragging in a breath Jason filled his lungs with humid air as he forced his focus to the ground beneath him, the stone against the backs of his knuckles. The need had begun to course through him in ever sharper pangs, and firmly he shoved it back, forcing the images seemingly burned into the backs of his eyelids to blur and darken. He was greater than them, stronger than some indefinable need, this cousin to gnawing hunger. He was more ghost than man, and whatever these urges were they belonged to a living man, not the shadow of one. He allowed the rage to flood in, washing away everything else until it was all he could feel. It was still too hot, too volatile, but he staunchly refused to think on it. Anger was better than confusion, than panic. Better than need or a wrongness he could neither name nor control.

He hadn’t noticed his hands curling into fists until his knuckles scraped stone, the grain of it a textured rasp against his skin as he turned on a heel and started around the side of the house.

The power box may have required a key, but Jason did not. He yanked the metal door from its hinges with such force that he nearly pulled it from the wall, flipping the breakers with a flick of a wrist to plunge the house and the surrounding space into the calm cool of darkness. Not that he was capable of fully appreciating it. For once the dark did not soothe him. For once it merely seemed to exacerbate everything simmering between the layers of skin and tissue.

The double click of a door opening and closing reached his ears, and could tell by the precise, if subtle, creak that it was the same door through which the pair he had followed there had entered.

For a moment he remained still, listening, head cocked slightly to one side, combing through the night noises for cues. If there were footsteps, they were faint, cautious. Alerted now to the presence of something unusual, if not an outright threat.

Jason circled back around, hugging close to the side of the house – with exception of the illuminated window which he granted a generous berth – until he caught movement and stilled, vision narrowing in on the source. Another boy, alone, as the first had been. This one, however, was neither guileless nor oblivious to the dangers which might lurk in the shadows just beyond his line of sight. Armed with a poker and gripping what appeared to be a good-sized pan against his arm like a makeshift shield, he moved with a stiff, twitchy kind of caution that reminded Jason of a rabbit on alert – very much aware of his own vulnerability, the reality that any movement in the dark might signal something deadly.  

Jason waited before following, battling the urge to chase him down by shaking his head once, sharply, sternly. He was not in the right temper for hunting. He had been backed into an unseen corner and was deeply rattled –  _beyond_  rattled – wedged in a state of panic and urgency that was as unfamiliar as it was jarring and he should not be attempting to do anything but purging it, or else riding it out. But what else could he do? He had already begun the killing, and it appeared the others had already discovered that their compatriot had gone missing. He had no choice, now. After another generous few seconds he began to trail after the boy, who appeared to be making his way toward the shed – quite possibly looking for his now very dead friend – preceded by the nervously bobbing beam of a flashlight.

He allowed the boy to duck through the open door before following in earnest, swallowing down still more of the incessant urge to hurry. Haste was not an asset in this part of the hunt. Stealth and patience were, and regardless of whether or not he was in the right place mentally for either, they were things he  _must_  be; which made it somewhat painful to stalk slowly when the very air in his lungs seemed to be demanding him to run down, to eradicate, and  _now._ But he managed somehow – proving, if only to himself, that he was still master over himself where it mattered.

Light still trickled out from the slatted windows near the roof of the outbuilding, flickering slightly in a way that made it seem the interior was aflame as he slipped inside. Strange, the difference a few minutes could make. Before the light had just been a visual manifestation of the state of his prey. Now it was an avid discomfort, a claw scraping across the surface of a fresh burn. The dark was certainly no long the ally it usually was as of a moment ago, but the light was even worse. The light made him feel exposed in every glaring, uncomfortable way. None the least of which was to himself.

“Chewie, you in here?” 

With the call and the shuffling footsteps to measure by, Jason surmised the boy was somewhere at the right rear corner by the chest-freezer, not quite opposite the wall of tools. An estimation that was quickly verified by the hollow clatter of metal meeting cement floor. Something had been dropped – either poker or pan to free a hand, or so Jason assumed. For the second time he picked his way through the open shelves, stepping out just as the boy straightened from investigating the freezer, dark hair and skin blending with the warm brown of his coat collar. 

He had not yet found the body, though he was standing almost directly beneath it. But the boy seemed almost to sense his friend’s presence, lending him a guarded sense of foreboding that made his silent stalker uneasy.  

Jason didn’t tend to clean up after his kills until he was very definitely through making them, when he had appropriate time and freedom to be thorough. Often this worked to his benefit. People tended to become scattered and hysterical at the sight of broken glass and a bit of blood, sometimes more than they did at the sight of an actual body. Just then, though, he wondered if this time it would have been better to tidy up a bit before vacating the shed. If for no other reason than to potentially lessen what happened with this particular victim. One that appeared neither scattered nor hysterical, nor any variation thereof, for all that blood was splattered across the floor and the freezer lid.

It was unclear what gave him away. He cast no visible shadow – he had made certain of that – made no sound, disturbed no detritus of gravel or glass, didn’t so much as rustle the air in the close space. But something caused the boy to turn. Not the way the first did, random and unsuspecting, but pointed, for a reason; moving subtly, instinctively backward with the same inertia it took his body to shift around with an astute sense of perception that caught Jason utterly unawares.

He knew better. He truly did. He had been doing this for far too long to make such a blunder. Yet still he felt the reflex take him, forcing his arm to arc upward in a wild grabbing motion rather than reaching for the blade which would extend his reach, all the while his mind cursed him for the fool he was acting. The boy was quite fast, it was true, darting swiftly backward and out of range – hurling curses and insults all the way – with a speed that, while normally would have been no issue, was frustratingly effective in the moment. He followed, feeling his hackles raise like an angry dog’s as he chased the boy down across the rear stretch of the shed. He felt heavy, weighted back and down as though he were dragging himself through waist-high water, and there was no reason for it. None at all. Which only served to add heat to his vexation, setting it to a dull simmer.

The boy leaped nimbly over the length of a saw bench and slid underneath, collar of his jacket just slipping from Jason’s grasp.

Pain burst, white-hot, just above the knee.

Jason staggered, nerves at his outer thigh shrieking as the poker was withdrawn from where it had sunk into flesh. He bent on long-buried instinct, clutching at the wound as if to stop it bleeding, though he needn’t have bothered. The damage was minimal. No ligaments or tendons, slower to heal than muscle strands, had been hit, and the bone had been merely scraped. But the sensation of it _stung,_ and far worse than he remembered pain being the last time he’d been injured…whenever that had been. It was so rare that anyone had the speed or accuracy to actually do him harm, and while it wouldn’t last, the surprise of it directly fueled his anger. It was a combination of this, he supposed, and the frustration of his prey having managed to evade him even this long which caused his next swipe to be too shallow, missing the boy as he slipped out from beneath the bench and raced for the door, feet pounding out a matching rhythm to the blood pounding in Jason’s temples.

What was the matter with him? Why couldn’t he focus long enough to bring an end to one worthless human life?

But he already knew the answer.

It was the anger – this hot, blistering wrath. Anger he was familiar with, but not this kind. This was not he cold, steady rage with which he was familiar, the kind that only seemed to heighten his senses. This was wild and uncontrolled, and dangerous. It crackled and bristled across him like static, as though he might strike sparks against anything he touched. It was making him clumsy, delaying his reflexes, making him reactive rather than calculated. The exact opposite of what he should be. What he _needed_ to be.

Jason seethed as he surged after the boy, slamming a hand into the shelving as he left the shed and feeling no satisfaction in the answering crash behind him. A stupid thing to do, really. But at this point it hardly mattered. They knew he was there; attempts to hide that may or may not aid him later, but just now, he honestly did not care. 

He ignored the protest from the wound in his leg. He could already feel the broken tissues beginning to knit themselves slowly back together in spite of the pace he set, breaking into a run the instant he set foot on earth instead of cement. A place he relied on so heavily to move would take a bit longer than normal to heal, but it would in time. As he rounded the side of the building the gleam of the ax caught his eye; embedded in the old stump clearly used as a splitting block for the wood left out in a neat stack for winter. 

 _Perfect._  

He seized it, wrenching it free with a burst of splinters. 

The boy was fleeing as though the jaws of hell were nipping at his heels and Jason gave chase, something savage in him hissing as rain did upon contact with hot metal as he narrowed the distance between them and swung the weapon over his head. He flung it, the twin blades slicing the air with a sound sweeter almost than any he had ever heard. A sound matched only by that of the meaty thud of one of those blades sinking deep into flesh.

The satisfaction he had been missing before flared in response to the clatter of chopped wood, the ragged scream of shock and pain tearing through a windpipe. And something about it allowed him to regain a grip upon the ferocity of his rage.

He took his time making his way to the woodpile where the boy had fallen, half in the hope that the cries would coax another person from the house to be dealt with accordingly. Not that any of those particular fish appeared to be biting. Yet that was only half the reason to measure his steps, to walk slowly. It was a precious moment with which to center himself again, to calm down. Refocus. Force the pounding in his head and chest to slow and ease. The anger was permissible, but the _heat_ behind it was making him sloppy, ineffective, and he could not allow that to go any further. He was stronger than the anger. Stronger than the cause of it.

“Help me—oh God,  _help_  me,  _please!_  I can’t move…”

The boy was still screaming, crying out to his remaining friends, with only the faintest hint of a gurgle to tell the truth of just how much damage had been done. He was sprawled atop the stack of firewood, unmoving but for the crane of his neck as he spewed yet more pleas to fall on deaf, or else uncaring, ears.

"I can’t die like this!"

One half of the ax-head was embedded in the boy’s back nearly up to the head of it where wood anchored metal. The handle stuck out at a crude forty-five degree angle, and with a vicious sense of gratification Jason gripped it, hauling the limp body upward and around. 

The whites around dark irises were huge and luminous with the primal recognition of impending death. The boy stank of it, sour terror and copper-hot blood, the ammonia of urine and bile. He screamed when Jason lifted him, screamed when Jason threw him down into the wood, the feral, gut-deep scream of an animal in its death throes. After the blades of the ax split him, cracking open his rib cage like the shell of a walnut, the silence which followed was both definite and calm.

Jason had already turned back to the house. Calculating. If the rest would not venture out, if they would not come to him, then he would go to them.

He was aware that he was somewhat larger than the average human. As a boy he had been on the lanky side, long-limbed and a bit gangly, but small. Yet in all his years of hunting he had never met his match in either height or breadth. He didn’t think of himself as extraordinary, but then he didn’t really consider himself human anymore, either, and so when he was able to do things such as lift a hand to grip the eaves of the porch at the back of the house and lift himself one-armed up onto the roof, it didn’t occur to him that this might not have been something the average person could do. It was just a natural use of environment to his advantage. A use of strength he naturally possessed. Nothing more. Nothing extraordinary.

While he had precious little experience breaking into houses, Jason surmised he would be able to figure it out.  All he had to do was find a way inside, find one chink in the armor that was the structure.

Simply smashing down a door to go barreling inside had never been an option. Jason was many things, but a deliberate risk-taker wasn’t generally one of them – all evidence leading up to this point aside (it had been a trying night, after all). There were too many variables he couldn’t calculate. One of the largest and most important being that he still didn’t know exactly how many people he was dealing with aside from the four he had directly witnessed. However many there were, they expected him to enter from the ground level. He could see the beams of their flashlights flicking along the ground outside, diffused by window glass as they tried to spot him; using what little they knew of him to imagine they were safe so long as they stayed inside their shelter of wood and stone like the roaches they were.

He was pleased to find a window on the second floor had been left cracked by an inch. The pane of glass giving inside its metal track rather than needing to be broken seemed like the first thing to go right since the interruption of the people on the lake all those hours ago. It was a tight fit for him, requiring patience and some contortion on Jason’s part in order to slip inside and to do so without creating a racket. 

Not half a moment after he had taken stock of the bathroom in which he found himself the door from the hall began to open with a soft whine. Folding himself tightly back into the corner he enveloped himself in the thick dark, stilling his breath and his pulse, with a firm exertion of will.

He recognized her instantly, for all that he caught no glimpse of her face. The wheat gold of the hair falling around her shoulders was a sharp giveaway, and it was enough to make his stomach drop as though he’d been kicked.

The floor creaked softly beneath her bare feet as she stepped tentatively inside, peering about in the dark. Stupid girl. She _should_ fear the dark. She should fear the monsters it promised – monsters like him.

Revulsion rose like bile to pool at the back of his throat. He had an aversion to blond hair, and blonde girls specifically. They reminded him of the girl had that cleaved his mother’s head from her shoulders, no matter how many years passed. But his dislike for this one was two-fold. Her fair hair nurtured aversion on principle, but what he felt churning in his gut as he watched her draw ever closer, reaching out with a slender, trembling hand to grip the shower curtain, was far more than mere dislike. It was disgust.

She disgusted him. The nearness of her as he moved silently out from the corner disgusted him. Her  _breathing_  disgusted him, panting and overloud, her fear a soured note to a sugary sweetness near to sickening that must have been coming from her skin or hair. Yet there was something else, something sharper, stronger. It wasn’t entirely _her_ that curdled the hatred in his veins and on his tongue, was it.

With a grating metallic slide she ripped the curtain back, and he could see her visibly relax, watched her shoulders loosen and slump when nothing was revealed – the split instant before his arms came up and around her, one locking tight around her middle while the other hand clamped over her mouth to seal her voice inside.

Muffled screams were a flare of heat against his palm, nails scraping at the back of his wrist as her body met his.

Instantly he recognized the mistake. He should have used the blade and damn the space constraints, damn the possibility of noise and being overheard – even the chance that she might have fled. Whatever sense or logic or reason he might have had to do so, he should  _not_  have pulled her back against him.

The response was as involuntary as it was unwanted: a swift, sweet twist of longing that tangled viciously with the disgust and whatever lingering shreds of anger remained. For an instant he was lost.

There was an insistence in his flesh, a pull as fierce as gravity. His grip tightened instinctively, and he wished it hadn't, his temples throbbing at the ache in his head and in his groin. Everything was wrong. _She_  was wrong. She was too short and too full, too round, too...too bright and sugary sweet behind the stench of her terror. He didn’t want her skin, her breath on his palm. He didn’t want the shape of her against him. And yet he  _did_. Or, that was what every nerve in his body seemed to be wailing at him in a war of impulse so violent that it almost hurt.

Fury and revulsion clotted like blood in his mouth, and he cast his eyes around the tiny room for something, anything with which to end it. If he ended her, he ended this. It had to. There was something sticking out from the back of the door, pieces of what looked like antler mounted there as if in some strange decoration. That would do.

Jason twisted, bracing his feet against the floor as he lifted her. She barely even struggled – didn’t kick or claw or bite him, didn’t do anything beyond merely wriggling and sniveling like a half-dead rabbit. Whitney would have managed at least two blows by now, if not three. Ineffective, sure. But she would have been trying. He might have thought somewhat better of the girl had she made even an _attempt_ in the defense of her own life, but she didn’t. She just dangled there in his grip, with no more fight in her than her muffled whimpers as he thrust her forward and into the antlers.

He used force enough that the impact would kill her immediately. When he let go she hung limp and lifeless from the anchor like a doll, and while his sense of justice subsided, grudgingly appeased, the rest of him was no less agitated than he had been before. Killing her had not purged him of whatever poison was still swimming in his blood. His hand clenched into a reflexive fist, blunt nails digging into the skin of his palm.

How did he _stop_ this? How did he go back to feeling normal?

A swift lick of awful panic struck him hard in the ribs – what if there was no going back to normal? What if this wasn’t something that could be expelled, or even fixed?

The crunch of gravel and the flash of headlights preceded the arrival of a car. Jason glanced outside to see the flashing strip of red and blue lights crowning its metal body. He knew what those lights meant. Law enforcement.

Strange that they would come here…though he supposed that this wasn’t precisely his territory, it was near enough that they should have known better. And now there was one more kill he had to make. One more body to be dealt with. For if he didn’t, the man would ferry away those he was really here for, usher them to safety and out of Jason’s reach – and the tithe would go unpaid.

That was unacceptable. Apparently a reminder was in order, as to why the law should stay out of business that did not concern them. 

He maneuvered himself back out onto the roof, holding his weight to the side in order to balance atop the sloped surface as he made his way around the perimeter of the house where the front door stood. He heard the officer’s shoes scrape the stoop half a second before the rap of knuckles against the door.

“Police,” the officer announced, and Jason picked up on the put-upon tone to the word. “Police,” came the reiteration after a moment of silence, “open up.”

Jason crouched upon the overhang directly above the other man, bracing a hand against the eaves while the other slipped the machete from its straps with a near-silent whisper of steel.

Soundlessness no longer required much effort. When he dropped to the stoop just behind the policeman it was with a silence so practiced that he hardly felt his own weight behind it. Yet Jason suspected the reason the policeman whirled to face him had nothing to do with sound and everything to do with the menace he knew he was projecting in the worst way imaginable.

There was realization in the man’s eyes as Jason’s arm bent back, gripping the handle of the machete as though gripping a javelin, the slow dawning of belief kindled from ashes long gone cold. Before there had been none. He hadn’t believed the stories, hadn’t believed in monsters. Until he had.

Too late.

With a single powerful thrust Jason drove the blade forward, pointed tip piercing straight through the eye socket, punching through skull and brain matter. The blow went so deep that he could feel the blade slice straight through the door, reaching for the broken screams he could hear on the other side, the bloodless faces he could see whisk out of sight on the other side of the narrow windowpanes to the left of the door.

He heard the arrhythmic pounding of feet on wood flooring as they scattered toward the back of the house. It didn’t matter. They were wound too tight within their fear to get far. He might not know these woods as well as his own, but in that much he was certain.

Sharply he withdrew the machete, metal scraping bone as it slid free. The body of the office slumped sideways against the door before falling to the ground in a heap, an empty husk of bleeding flesh.

The policeman’s keys were in a jacket pocket, the ones for the motorized not-quite-bicycle still seated within the ignition. He lobbed them into the trees – two jangling pinpricks of light swallowed by the night shadows. No chance of escape that way. No chance of circling back around and attempting to flee with the vehicles. They had no way to leave but on his terms. On foot.

He had assumed they would flee through the back. It had seemed the logical trajectory based on their movements, and he had thought to catch them there, drop down among them from the rooftop like a cat among mice and have done with it in a quick, brutal – and highly inadvisable – melee. Yet no sooner had he swung himself back up to the roof and taken up position above the patio door then he heard the screech and bang of the one at the front, the shrill, incoherent chaos of voices.

He lifted his head, twisting to peer over the incline of the roof to watch the flashing arcs of flashlight beams blinking in and out like frantic fireflies between the trees.

The growl of resentment rumbled through him, a hot spark of anger building atop the still-warm embers of what had come before. He was starting to feel a shallow tick at his jaw, a result of having clenched it so tightly for so long.

Nothing could go smoothly tonight, it seemed. Not a  _single_   _thing_.

He leaped from the roof, hitting the ground at a dead run.

It wasn’t about having to chase them. He wasn’t concerned about losing them, not with the sheer amount of noise they were making – heaving breaths and heavy steps, crushing brush and bracken underfoot. It was just that he wanted to be done with it. He had expended far too much energy, far too much time, too much  _anger_.

The only reason he didn’t simply launch himself into the trees and track by sound was for the sake of being thorough. Not even the coals of his temper would allow him to be anything less. Thus, he took a quick detour to the front path to find the place where the mayhem of tracks diverted.

Three sets of tracks – two leading one way, one another.

There was no real reason for choosing one over the other, no reason other than the momentum carried him easily in the direction of the trail made by one set of feet. But when he traced the source to the narrow gravel road, caught the glaring beam of the flashlight against rusted chrome, the gleam of pale hair in the weak moonlight, he was viciously glad of it.

He might dislike people on principle, but this boy – this perfect, golden boy…he  _hated_. He didn’t know why, other than to blame him as he had blamed the girl in the bathroom – a second source of all the fury and confusion and helpless, nonsensical need still raging inside him. Jason knew – and knew full well – that it had little to do with the boy himself and everything to do with the tumult inside Jason’s own head. All the same, everything in him wanted to make the worm pay for it. In the slowest, most brutal way he could devise.

He recognized the truck behind which the boy hovered, knew that it came from the old farmer’s lands. They must have veered close to the farm, then, especially for Garrick himself to be driving. The old man was leaning out the window to peer back at the boy in the road, waving a gnarled hand in a gesture which very clearly said: _come on._

Given a choice, Jason would rather not have dragged Garrick into the matter. But the choice was already out of his hands. Something which even the farmer seemed to understand, bony, vein-darkened hand drooping and the whites of tired eyes blowing wide as he watched Jason emerge from the pooling shadows.

Garrick said not a word as Jason moved up behind the blond boy, machete free and all but singing in his grip. Said nothing even as Jason plunged the blade through the boy’s back to emerge from the belly with a squelch of organ meat and a watery shout of shock and pain.

Normally Jason didn’t much care for cruelty. But even he managed to derive a sense of relish from the crack of ribs and the spill of intestines as he tucked his empty palm beneath the end of the blade and lifted the boy clean off the ground with it, the choked, sucking sounds of air dragging in and out of lungs too panicked to properly process it. The pain seemed to be so excruciating that the boy couldn’t muster the energy to scream, though his face contorted with it, wrenching and twitching – which Jason drank in as he watched, vengeful satisfaction burning in his chest.

Yet for as fierce as it had been upon igniting, the hot flare of victory did not last. Within seconds the almost feral glee soured, and suddenly Jason found himself repulsed by the slow shuddering death taking place between his hands, by the boy, by the entire situation in which he found himself. The situation which now just felt like one intensely vicious mistake.

He had never before enjoyed killing – not even the first girl, all those years ago – and in spite of the brief glint of justice it had granted, inflicting pain this way, rather than simply meting out death as he usually did…he _vehemently_ did not like it.

The truck’s engine was spluttering, flooding with fuel as the farmer tried to start it too fast. Out of the very corner of the eye-hole his mask provided Jason could see the old man shaking his head through the cab’s rear window, over and over, as if to tell himself what he was seeing wasn’t real. Jason felt another minute pang of regret, but it didn’t stop him from pitching the convulsing body onto the prongs of the hay baler seated in the bed of the truck just as the ignition caught with a roar. Gravel and scree kicked up as the tires crunched, propelling the truck forward, carrying the now very dead boy splayed between the red glare of taillights.

Jason stood in the center of the narrow road, watching the truck speed wildly around a corner and out of sight, the body at its back looking not unlike a far bloodier depiction of Christ he had once seen in his mother’s bible. The sight was a gruesome one, and he was unsettled by the mingled disgust and exhaustion he felt as the last dragging foot disappeared.

To say the night had not gone according to plan was an understatement in the extreme. He had been meant to check one more cache near the lakeside and head back home, to bring Whitney her dinner and maybe bring her outside for an evening walk after. The afternoon sky had hinted at a beautiful sunset that he knew she would have liked. One that had gone to waste all because humans seemed incapable of leaving him and his lands in peace.  

He felt a dull throb somewhere in his chest.

All he wanted right there in that moment was to see her, to touch the soft skin at the inside of her wrist and feel the pulse, the _life_ there. He wanted to replace the smells of blood and dirt and chemicals with that of her hair. He wanted to be near her, even if she was still near vibrating out of her skin in her anger at him. But he couldn’t just yet. There were still two more people somewhere in the woods.

He could recall that their tracks had been leading roughly southwest, though he backtracked until he relocated the trail just to be sure. Tracking their steps would be faster than guesswork, and after everything else, he just wanted to finish it. The longer he followed the trail however, the more concern began to outweigh his weariness.

The southwestern trajectory had been correct and, for all that the two of them were stumbling around in the dark, seemed to be maintaining. If that was true, then they were headed straight for the campground. And the house.

And her.

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, loves. 
> 
> I’m sorry for the wait on this one, it’s been a busy and somewhat stressful month and it was not super conducive to writing except in short bursts. I literally cranked the last part out today even though I feel like shit because I needed something positive. 
> 
> Quick note – we’re maybe about halfway through the entirety of what I have plotted out for this story, give or take. I’ve gotten a few comments that seem concerned about how the movie parts are going to affect the relationship development and I just wanted to put that out there, so rest easy. 
> 
> Oooooook. The shed/house hunting sequence. Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot I love about it. It’s very classic in that it catches the feel of the original two Friday final girls being trapped in the cabins and unable to see shit and it feels very real and terrifying. It’s also totally ridiculous in that nothing about the timing makes sense. I changed a LOT. Which is part of why writing it took me so long, because I had no idea going in how I was going to write it with the exception of one very specific part (which is a whole other ball of wax).
> 
> But there’s just so much about this sequence that feels wrong. I hate Chewie’s death because it’s unnecessarily slow (you cannot tell me Jason would not have just snapped that twig of a kid like a matchstick). And yes, Lawrence is fast and darts around, I can’t really see Jason not machetefying him after just a few seconds of that fuss. However, then we don’t get that glorious ax-throw. So my Deus ex Machina is the whole being mentally thrown off his axis by emotion – rather like the Donnie situation. I can’t actually tell at what point Brie ends up in the actual bathroom. Either there are three separate doors in that bathroom or she started in a hall and we didn’t see her change settings. Bad spatial directing.
> 
> Then when the cop shows up Jason has to get out of the bathroom, all the way out to the path where Lawrence drops the poker, get back on the roof, cross the house in a matter of maybe a minute, maximum, to get there in time to perform eyeball-impalement. Not physically possible even for my slightly more-than-humanly-enhanced Jason. Not to mention all the back and forth, around and up and down that goes on after that. 
> 
> Anyway. It was hard. But now that that’s out of the way I feel like I know where I’m going again.
> 
> And I guess I should talk about the moment of voyeurism through the window. When I was first contemplating writing this fic, that was one of the first ideas/images in my head and it was a STRONG one. But because of that it was excruciatingly difficult to write. I’m still not confident I did justice to what was in my head, and through it I’ve been fretting about whether or not I’ve actually done the work to make it feel earned (not sure), which added to the time it took to update.  
> Ugh. It’s been a process. But here we are. I hope I didn’t lose too many of you here, for whatever reason, though I understand if I did. Hopefully the next wait won’t be so long.
> 
> A GINORMOUS THANK YOU to all of you for the kudos, and to those of you leaving me such wonderful, engaging comments that allow me to both fangirl and commiserate and bond with you, you are the actual best and I adore you.
> 
> Until next time!


	14. Take What's Mine

* * *

 

 

Whitney didn’t know how many times she cycled through stages of rage, hopelessness, grief, and despair as she sat there in her corner. 

She was at once cataclysmically lethargic and spiraling in and out of dizzying waves of mania. The feeling of uselessness seemed to be trying to claw its way out of her by way of her brain combing over potential solutions already dismissed as impossible at least thirty times before, as if to do that was at least to be doing something when to do nothing was…well, unacceptable. 

After what had felt like a literal deluge of tears, she no longer had the energy to cry, alternating instead between long moments spent silently clinging to Clay's bag and short, ferocious outbursts of crackling anger. Most of which resulted in throwing things. The first victim of her irrational temper was a bowl of long-cold soup hurled across the room, its contents spilling as the vessel clattered to the dirt. Several books had followed, and then the bag – which she had regretted almost immediately. She had kicked the metal grate at her left so hard that her foot still ached twenty minutes later. It was, all of it, stupid and pointless and a waste of energy. But the worst thing had been purely accidental. During a particularly violent yank on her chains she had knocked an elbow into the little green glass bottle, causing it to tip over the edge of the crate and break. 

Leaning over the crate, she reached to brush careful fingers across the curve of a piece of glass, regret churning sloppily in her stomach. 

 _Damn_  it.

For all that there were no tears left, her eyes burned with the reflex to cry. Yet the non-tears weren’t really about the bottle, even though it had been a gift sweetly given and she had just destroyed it. The guilt was about something else.

It hadn’t taken her long to wish she had kept her mouth shut, to just swallow the venom crafted out of fear instead of unleashing it like a weapon. She could tell herself that she hadn’t meant it to be hurtful all she liked, but it didn’t make it true. She had  _wanted_  it to sting. She had wanted Jason to hurt the way she hurt, if only for a split second. So she had thrown the insult and leaned back on feelings of victimhood to justify it, and  _God,_  she wished she hadn’t.

She wasn’t really angry at him anyway. Well, she was…but not in any concrete way. She supposed she could be angry that he was still refusing to end her captivity, but could she really blame him? Truly? At worst she was a risk, a possible threat to the status quo he had forged for himself. At best he simply didn't want to be left alone again, and that wasn’t something she could be mad at. She couldn't be angry with Jason for being what he was, especially not when she could have explained her point of view but had chosen not to. That was all her.

She should have told him. She should have just fucking risked it, to hell with whatever it might have done to her – because then at least she could have comforted herself with the knowledge that at least she had tried. But she hadn’t for reasons that she would never be able to look back on as anything but irrational. Too irrational to simply _ask._

More than anything else, she was angry at the circumstances, at all the things that had lined up just so to bring them there. She was angry with herself for letting Mike drag her here into the middle of nowhere, resulting in his own death and her imprisonment; because if she had just told him no – not even broken things off but simply turned the offer down – she wouldn’t be here, which meant she would still be home and Clay wouldn’t have had to come looking for her. But if she had said no, then she never would have…

Never have what – never have met a murderer?

The thought brought a dull ache to her chest that she didn't expect, and which promptly frustrated her.

She had no business being sad about the mere possibility of having never gone through this episode of torment as if she would have been  _missing out_  on something, and not just because it was silly to think about might-have-beens when nothing could change what had happened. It was just  _so_  fucked up to think that way. Yet she couldn’t really help it. Denying that she had connected to Jason on a human level was pointless now. She could no more deny it then deny the cuffs at her wrists, and maybe that made her well and thoroughly Stockholmed, but she didn’t give a single flying fuck anymore. None of that mattered now. She was sitting here in the dark waiting for him to come back, possibly lugging her brother’s corpse behind him, knowing that it would kill everything that had been built up so precariously between them. And the  _truly_  sick thing was she wasn’t sure which she mourned more: her brother, or the loss of a relationship that had begun to be such a healing, positive force in her life.

That was how fucked up she was. 

Whitney supposed it might be strange to have found a way to process and even make her peace with the death she had already witnessed. There was no real reason that this should be different. Murder was murder: the end. But she wasn’t sure it was that simple for her any more, and that wasn't strictly about the killing for its own sake.

Perhaps it was a mark of her own particular state of fucked-up-ness, yet she found herself leaning more toward the opinion that right and wrong weren't as black and white as she had once thought they were; that while she might not agree with the reasons, the death was a product of someone else's interpretation of those things and just because the ideology wasn't her own didn't automatically make it immoral.

If people were complicated, so too were the structures within which they chose to live. Her old beliefs were more a reflection of the state of the world as it had become than of natural rule; where globalization and the technology which aided it had shaped vastly large and different groups of people into strict, sharply defined molds called Law and Order. Jason reflected a time before that, where people left isolated from interaction for much of their time developed their own codes, their own uncrossable lines and impassible boundaries. It was neither right nor wrong, it simply was. That didn't lessen the impact of what she'd witnessed – she would feel it until the end of her days – but it had altered her perspective quite a bit. 

She wasn't sure what made Clay different, after all, just because she hadn't felt as close to Mike as she once had didn’t mean she had ever wished him dead. Maybe it was because she was feeling loss already, and that the thought of more on top of the very likely probability of their mother being gone was like twisting the knife already lodged in her gut. Maybe it was because it was Clay and she loved him, in spite of all his bullshit, when she had never really _loved_ Mike. Did it matter? Ultimately, no. It didn’t matter at all.

But that was how it was. Her life had eclipsed reality: blocked it out, cast it in shadow around her. She had become the lead in some strange horror-thriller drama where it clashed with a morality tale.

And that was how it would be. Jason wouldn’t come back until it was finished, and she would have to find a way to look at him again, to look him in the face and know what he’d done.

How was she supposed to do that? How was she going to stand being near him after? She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t be able to blame him, but neither would she be able to forgive him any more than she would be able to forgive herself – wrong and unfair as that might be. Whatever the nonsensical, irrational reasons, she had been able to withstand everything else. But this was going to destroy her. 

Sucking in a breath, she hugged her knees tight to her chest, tucking her bound hands between them.

She didn't know what to do with herself. It wasn't like she could eat or sleep even if she wasn't both wired and nauseated. Nor could she focus on anything but the inevitable. It was the worst kind of restlessness compounded with the worst kind of not knowing. What else could she do but keep vigil and pray to a God she didn't really believe in? 

When the floor above creaked, ever muscle in her body went tight, dread rising in the back of her throat and tasting of vomit because surely that inevitable had arrived.

But…wait. 

She listened, straining her ears to hear in the oppressive quiet. Another sound: a muffled shuffling, the groan of old wood. Whitney's heart stuttered in her chest, and at first it was difficult to string together why the sound of an old house shifting seemed so odd. Until she remembered that she had never heard it do so before. 

There it came again, the shuffling, faint, muted creaks upon the planks overhead. The scuff of shoe-soles, the complaint of weary floors, sounds that were so unusual that it had taken her generous seconds to recognize them. Because Jason never made noise when he was in the house before. She never heard him at all until he was at the trapdoor. And even if this had been him, the sounds themselves were wrong. If Jason were ever to make noise when he walked it would not be with scuffing shoes. His steps were nothing if not deliberate, always. He moved like a cat, not like this – hesitant and unsure. Which meant

_Someone else was in the house._

Hope flooded her veins as swiftly as if it fed to her through an IV, so pure and desperate that she felt dizzy with it. 

" _Help me!_ "

It left her in a ragged burst of sound as she tipped back her head and screamed with everything she had.

Sitting up onto her knees, she slammed her palms into the metal grate again and again until it rattled, the sound jarring and brash and wonderful. When in a state of desperation, unusual things could be comforting, grounding, even – which was just one of the highly (and disturbingly) useful things she had learned during her time there.

"Help me, _please!_ "

There was a sharp crack like wood splintering. She jumped in spite of herself, instantly reminded of the way the bathroom floorboards had split beneath Mike as he was pulled down through them. An image severed immediately by the familiar whine of the trapdoor hinges. Giddy nerves fluttered at the base of her breastbone as she heard the two soft thumps of impact of two bodies jumped down into the tunnel.

It was a fair distance from the trapdoor to the main chamber; she had walked it often enough to know. It had just never seemed quite so long before now. Her rescuers were proceeding with quite appropriate levels of caution, but she still felt as though she were waiting on a bed of needles. 

It occurred to her then that whoever this was might not be someone she wanted to meet. It was impressive how skewed her perceptions of danger had become that it had taken her until now to remember that not all people were inherently decent. Just because Jason hadn't turned out to be a psychopathic torturer did not mean whoever was coming now was any better than the monster she had originally taken him for. She couldn't regret drawing attention to herself, not when her brother's life was at stake, but she did feel a new wariness in the elevation of her pulse.

Reflexively she gathered up some of the extra length of chain, not entirely sure what she might hope to do with it, but deeming it better to be safe just in case. She had wondered before if she were at all capable of doing harm to another person, and she was only somewhat surprised to realize that yes. Yes, she was. If she had to wrap this chain around someone's neck and squeeze in order to stay alive, she would do it. If not for her own sake, then for Clay's. Without question.

She didn't have the time to think on it further; the footsteps were drawing ever closer, and she could see the beam of a flashlight cutting through the gloom.

It wasn't as dark as it might have been. She had her lantern, though its glow was waning drastically as the batteries slowly drained themselves of life, and the electric lights strung through the main tunnels courtesy of the excavation crew were on. Still the beam was a bright, narrow spear of solid white as it flitted back and forth in a manic path. Movement stirred in the thick shadows behind it, and Whitney gripped the chain more tightly as the figure of a man rounded the corner, only to stop sharply in his tracks as the beam of his flashlight swept in a quick arc to where she sat. It was as if the breath had been stolen right out of her lungs – because she _knew_ that face, knew the eyes that widened as the color rushed from his face in a quick, pale rush. Eyes that seemed to change color with the weather just like Mom's, spiraling from blue to gray to green in the way of ocean water.

"Whitney?"

The sob ripped from her chest, from where it had been lodged for who knew how long, as Clay crossed the tunnel room in a rush – nearly tripping over his own long legs in his haste to get to her.

" _Clay_ ," she breathed, "oh, God,  _Clay—_ "

He fell to his knees in front of her, dropping the flashlight and something else heavy and metallic to the ground with a clatter. Then his arms went around her, folding her into his body, warm and tall and a little lanky; and just like that she was small again, hugging her big brother, and all the poison and badness between them no longer mattered because he was there, and he was  _alive._ Was it possible to be sick from relief? Well, possible or not that's where she was, stomach roiling from the rapid transition from devastating terror to its absence. Emotion surged, and she dissolved into a mess of dry sobs, repeating his name over and over again as if it were some kind of verbal tic that she couldn't quell. And though she had thought she had cried herself dry, two more tears managed to wring themselves free, searing and hot against the tight skin of her cheek.

“Are you ok?” Clay was asking as he drew back to look at her. His hands were too warm against her face as they framed it, the skin of her cheeks tight and sore from so much crying. He was thinner than she remembered. Not by a lot, but enough that she could tell. His cheekbones were a little sharper, the cleft in his chin a little deeper, faint shadows formed faint half-moons under his eyes. Grief and stress would do that to a person. She probably looked rather different too. 

It was amazing in a truly awful way how much the trials and labors of life could consume nearly everything else. She had almost forgotten how much she loved him, with his too-pretty face and his stupid flippy hair, the tiny gap created by the very slightly crooked set of his lower front teeth. The resentment had poisoned her, made her blind to most of what lay beyond her own pain. A normal response, certainly, if unhelpful. But none of that seemed to important now. She had never in her life been happier to see anyone – to the point where it rendered her lightheaded. The relief was as potent as morphine. The gratitude she had to the universe for granting this one single, monumental boon so overpowering that she actually felt high for all of the five seconds it took her to breathe in the smell of him: laundry soap and sweat, and a faint hint of engine oil.

Five seconds. That was all she was allowed.

There was a girl hovering some feet behind her brother, looking on at the emotionally charged sibling reunion with mingled shock and wonder. She was quite pretty, in a delicate, pixie-cute way, and radiating a nervous fear behind an inherent sweetness, doe-eyes a little too wide. It was her presence that reminded Whitney where she was – where they  _all_ were.

Fear swept through her with the force of an electrical surge, her spine stiffening and a sharp inhale driving straight down into the sinking pit of her stomach.

“You’re ok,” he was promising now, his gaze dropping to the chains at her wrists and she could almost feel his horror emanating like heat off his skin. “You’re ok now…”

But Whitney was absolutely  _not_  ok and wouldn't be again until he was far away from this place.

She clutched at his shoulder with her bound hands, fingers curling into the gray cotton of his sleeve. "You have to go. You have to get out of here, before—"

She didn't have to finish. Just by the way Clay's expression clouded with a potent mixture of fear and realization she could tell that he knew exactly to what she was referring, and panic rose to squeeze gentle fingers about her throat. Obviously he was all right, because here he was in front of her. But if he had been close enough to know...Jason, thorough and attentive hunter that he was, wouldn't be far behind. And if the two of them were still there when he came, neither of them would be all right for long. 

"Go," she repeated shoving at her brother's shoulder. " _Now!_ " Clay had always been expressive, almost so much so that he sometimes looked like he was faking, but he wasn't. His face simply betrayed every tiny miniscule flash of emotion he felt, and just now these were shock, dismay, uncertainty, and – clearest of all – defiance. His jaw set in an obstinate line, and she knew before he so much as opened his mouth what his answer would be.

"I'm not going anywhere without you," he said, with too much inflection to be flat, but the sentiment was there.

 _Damn_ him and his pigheaded...but then she was just as stubborn, just as headstrong in the worst of ways. He wasn't going to go. She hated him just as much as she loved him for it.

He was already looking back down, hands dropping to the cuffs at her wrists. Meanwhile, in her head, she was juggling curse words like an especially acrobatic sailor and trying to think through the terror threatening to drown her because they _had no time_. None.

She didn't have the luxury of explaining to Clay why he needed to ditch her, and even if she could have made him listen there was no way he would believe that she'd be safe in his absence – not after he'd seen this. He wasn't capable of seeing that she wasn't physically wrecked, that she was fed and that there was plenty of water nearby, and that she wasn't sitting in her own filth. All he could see was his little sister chained up in the dark in a creepy underground lair and he wasn't going to leave her there. And she couldn't exactly pretend she didn't understand that. If he wouldn't go without her, then she had to get free.

Clay was pulling at the cuffs, trying to see if he could separate them from the chain attached to the wall. 

"Can you break them?" she pressed, feeling time closing in around her like a great, toothy creature in the dark and unwilling to wait for him to run through all the things she had already tried. 

To his credit, he didn't question or argue with her, just reached for the things he'd dropped, hand gripping the handle of what she could now make out to be a pickax. Surely  _that_  could break her loose. 

"Come on, you guys, we've got to get out of here," the girl hissed to them from where she stood lookout by the entrance to the room, and Whitney couldn't help but silently agree with her. 

Turning, she braced her closed fists atop the crate and pulled her wrists as far apart as she could. Clay’s arm was raised, poised to bring it and the tool he carried down on the chain, but he hesitated, a furrow of stress creasing his brow. 

"Do it," Whitney demanded, shaking her hands so the chain rattled pointedly. “Hurry.”

"I don't want to hit you—"

"Just fucking  _do it!_ "

But he didn't. 

Before she could chuck further obscenities at him, however, he gripped her left wrist and lowered the pickax, wedging the narrower, sharper end into the small loop of metal where the thinner chain which connected the two cuffs attached at the base. She understood immediately what he was trying to do, and it was such a smart idea – so much smarter than just banging away at the place where the two different chains attached and  _hoping_  the thing broke. Thank goodness Clay could think under pressure as she clearly could not. She braced, gripping the side of the crate while Clay twisted the pickax and heaved with what proved to be just the right combination of leverage and force. Not only did the chain come free, but the manacle itself split at the seam, the integrity of the old metal compromised beyond its ability to hold. The metal coil clattered to the wood slats beneath, revealing her wrist, still wrapped with gauze that had been clean as of that morning.

Relieved that his idea had worked, Clay switched to the other wrist, wedging metal point into metal loop. Again Whitney gripped the crate, using her other hand to hold the now dangling chain as the hair at the nape of her neck prickled as if she had felt the brush of someone's breath there. The muscles in her shoulders and back tightened automatically, her head jerking up like that of a prey animal scenting danger. 

She hadn't heard the whine of the trapdoor hinges a second time, indicating they must have left it open, but she didn't need it to know he was there. She heard the impact, faint as it was – absorbed by bent knees and the practiced precision of years. Felt it radiate along her bones as surely as she recognized the soft sound.

“Oh god…” she breathed.

What time they'd had was up.

"You guys," the girl whispered frantically, the beam of her own flashlight flicking toward the way they’d come. "I heard something—we have to go!”

With a grunt of exertion, Clay heaved at the pickax. The manacle split with a metallic crack that jangled her nerves the way a cat might have picked up a mouse and shaken it. She was wound so tightly in her nervous terror that she cast the broken bits of metal away from her like a snake, ignoring Clay's attempt to help her as she lurched to her feet and shoved him back toward the rear of the tunnel. 

She didn't know the way. She didn't even know what lay beyond this room let alone which of the numerous branches off the main tunnel might lead to safety, if there even was one. For all she knew the mining tunnels were a maze, or else led nowhere but deeper into the earth. It was why she didn't argue when Clay picked one of the three options and ushered her and the brown-haired girl along it. She just went, following as the other girl set off at a run all the while her heart pounded like a fist trying to beat its way out through her bones. 

They couldn't move as quickly as she would have liked. For all that they were relatively spacious and sturdily fortified by the wooden beams which formed the skeleton of their structure, the tunnels were riddled with hazards; obstacles in the form of rocks and random piles of junk and stuff left either to store or else to rot with time. They were forced to pick their way carefully between stints of speed, and the stress of this alone was enough to knit burning stitches into Whitney's sides for all that the exertion wasn't great. She could hear Clay's repeated mutters of "go, go, go" behind her, feel his hand at her back or shoulder every so often as though reassuring both her and himself that they were both still there. 

She could almost feel Jason bearing down on them in the heavy shadows, once again the titan of blood and metal, the vengeful death god, and even if that no longer scared her quite the way it once had the idea caused the world narrowed down to dirt and electric light to swim wildly about her. With every stride she took the locket bounced against her breastbone, each tap striking sparks of guilt and some other, emotion she couldn't name.

She shouldn't have taken it. It wasn't hers after all, she should have left it behind...

They followed the bend of the passageway as it curved to the right and came to a stop as their path ended in a wall of packed earth and rock.

Whitney felt her stomach sink, pressing flat against her pelvic floor.

“What are we gonna do?” the girl whimpered, and Whitney had never agreed with a sentiment more.

Even if they could backtrack they would only be wasting yet more time when every too-quick breath stood for a second they couldn't afford to spend. Clay had begun frantically searching the space around them, stretching up on his toes to smack at a metal grate set into the tunnel ceiling, swearing when it barely so much as rattled. Whitney could only turn, glancing back the way they'd come and wondering how long they had before Jason ran them down. 

Did she have any chance of saving them – her brother, the girl with him? She didn't know the girl but she already felt protective of her, would have even if she hadn't been with Clay because she was just a girl, as Whitney had been once, and she didn't deserve to die just because she had happened upon the wrong place to be. What if she shielded them? What if she put her own body between him and them and simply refused to move? Silly question: as if she could actually bar his way. All he'd have to do was move her. He could just pick her up, physically remove her from the way as she screamed and kicked and while she didn't think he would particularly enjoy causing her distress, it wouldn't stop him. 

From behind her Clay emitted a noise of discovery, and she turned back in time to watch him lift a piece of what looked like broken wooden fencing away from where it had rested against the tunnel wall. He tossed it aside with a scrape of old nails to reveal a narrow opening. 

A tiny flutter of relief eased the crushing weight of her dread. The opening led into an adjoining branch of the tunnel system, but lit and widened out just like its parent, which meant that maybe not all way lost quite yet. 

Clay bent at the waist to glance inside, and upon deeming it safe, called over a shoulder: "We can get through here—follow me." 

He clambered through, his long, tall frame awkward as he maneuvered in such a narrow space. Once inside he flung an arm back out, reaching for them. 

“Come on,” he urged, beckoning for her to take his hand.

Automatically Whitney turned to usher the brown-haired girl in after him. Of the three of them, she was the least at risk, after all. Meeting the girl’s wide, warm eyes she gestured to the tunnel mouth.

"Go."

The girl gave a firm shake of her head. "You first," she insisted, and there was something stubborn about the set of her jaw that Whitney understood perfectly.

They were each trying to protect each other, in their own ways. This girl had been led to believe Whitney had spent the past weeks as a prisoner, being terrorized and tormented in who knew what ways, and regardless of whether she was right or not something in Whitney responded to the insistent display of protectiveness from this person who didn't know her from Eve. It was a thing done in very real kindness, and her own stubbornness wavered – torn between a fierce need to assert her own knowledge and desire to protect this unexpected sister in the face of horror and the reprieve it was to be taken care of this way. Ultimately it was the press of time that made her decision for her. Rather than argue she relented, moving to take Clay's outstretched hand. 

Bending, she climbed into the open mouth, knees kicking up a fine powder of loose dirt, her elbow scraping a piece of rock as she let him haul her through to the second tunnel.

As soon as she had the room to stand she did, wrenching her body around to face the opening. The brown-haired girl was already climbing through, flashlight still clutched in one hand as she struggled slightly, knees catching at the uneven surface beneath them.

Clay reached for her, hands closing about her wrists to help pull her through. Not half a second later there was a bright flash of metal in the dark and a noise like nothing else on the face of the earth. 

The sound a human body made when impaled upon a blade was a peculiarly awful thing. It wasn't really a product of the body itself, or of the blade, but rather the force which drove one through the other – wet and thick and almost vacuumous, as if from air being sucked into places it wasn't supposed to be. And that was only the flesh. Add to it the oddly meaty crack of breaking bone and you had pure nightmare fuel to last a lifetime. It was this precise sound Whitney heard first, the instant before she saw the blade punch clean through the brown haired girl’s chest.

She screamed, and it seemed a thing ripped from her, shrill and hard and scraping the inside of her throat.

The girl jerked reflexively, her eyes widening almost imperceptibly, lips parting as if in something as mild as surprise. Then she looked down, peering at the pointed end of the machete that protruded from where it had split the bones, blood slick and dark across the mirror surface.

" _Fuck,_ Jenna!" Clay yelled. He had jerked back instinctively from the blade but he reached again for her. "Jenna— _Jenna,_ no!" 

Their hands brushed, fingertips frantically grasping and failing to take hold, and in that small, brief and fading moment something new and now tragic could be seen. The girl was gasping, working without success to breathe around the metal lodged in her chest. Jenna. Her name was – had been – Jenna, and it seemed so wrong to only learn it now that she was dying, doe eyes rolling back into her skull as her body quickly drained of everything that made her more than just a shell.

Later, Whitney knew, she would mourn this death. She would mourn the new friend forged in trauma; mourn the kindness that had gotten Jenna killed. Because if only she had insisted it might have been Whitney in her place, and in that place to buy just a little more time even if it had cost her life. But now could not be later. Now was the time for vigilance, for action. The sorrow would have to wait. 

Launching herself at her brother she seized him about the torso, fumbling for purchase at his arm, his sleeve, anything. She dug her heels into the dirt, throwing all of her weight into the effort as she heaved, and it was a sign of either the sheer strength of her fear or the power of Clay's sense of loss that she was able to drag him a few steps away from the opening just as the machete was yanked free of Jenna's slumping form. Her body collapsed, seeming almost to fold in on itself as it was wrenched forcefully from the tunnel mouth – revealing the now all too familiar mask, white as scored bone in the dark.

" Oh god, _Clay,_ " Whitney cried, her voice breaking on the name as she pleaded around the taste of bile and the pulse throbbing like a death knell in her brain. Her gaze was fixed to the ghostly oval, to the eyes too shadowed even to glimmer that she knew must be black and burning – to the massive hand reaching in, long, broad fingers hooking about the lip of the opening. 

Clay twisted in her grasp, his pain and shock at the loss of Jenna rapidly overridden by the need to protect his sister. She felt him plant a hand against her side to press her backward and away. "Fuck—go," he hissed, the words clipped and urgent. " _Go!_ " 

As quick as the muscles in her legs and back were to resume the precarious flight, it was unexpectedly difficult to tear her eyes away, for reasons she wasn't sure she knew how to reconcile. But she did. She gripped her brother's sweat-lined hand in her own, and then she ran as she had not run in weeks; fleeing from the very same danger she had fled from before. And yet it wasn’t the same at all.

Not by a long shot.

*

With every step Jason’s apprehension increased, whining at an ever higher pitch inside his skull.

He was catching up; of that much he was sure. Whoever he followed, even without light they weren’t difficult to track. For one thing, the reek of fear and chemicals only seemed stronger now as the night deepened, and judging by the swath of disturbed foliage and cracked branches they left in their wake, the combination of fear and of traversing strange terrain was slowing them down. Under any other circumstances this would be cause for satisfaction, not trepidation. And perhaps if the trail he followed wasn’t leading headlong for the house he might have relegated this circumstance among all the rest. By the time it led him through the campground the apprehension had swelled to become full-on worry, loud and buzzing in his head like a swarm of aggravated bees.

The dirt path that led to what was technically the back of the house was edged by a length of crumpled chicken-wire fencing originally erected in the hope of keeping deer out of the rose bushes that had been his mother’s prized possessions. The roses had long since swallowed the porch in front with the aid of the other plants, curling around the eaves and making any attempt to circumnavigate the house a treacherous one.

It had been a long time since he had looked at the house of his childhood with anything outside of the realm of the usual range of emotions: sadness, emptiness, solitude, all worn and aged to a mild sepia tint after so many years. Now, as he stared at the screen door set crooked on its hinges – not how he’d left it – dread unlike anything he remembered knowing before flooded him. Rapidly he shoved the emotion away, cramming it into the back-most corners of his mind, unwilling to allow emotion to best him for a single moment more. 

He exercised all the knowledge he had of the old house’s weak points as he entered, utilizing every ounce of stealth he had developed as he picked his way up the steps and across the threshold into the kitchen, eyes scanning the thick shadows inside. They had come inside at the very least. He could smell them, the stench of sweat gone sour with the fear pumping as thickly as the blood in their veins – so strong that he could almost taste it in the back of his mouth. Still, it was possible his concern was misplaced. It was possible they had come and gone, they’d had enough time for that; time enough to dart back outside, cross the broken spine of fencing and run back into the trees. 

Even as he invented the scenario he knew it to be fiction, yet the ferocity with which he needed it to be real was almost enough to convince him otherwise for the seconds it took him to clear the kitchen and part of the hall. Before he passed the threshold into the living room and his eyes dropped to the floor, to the light emanating from below.

The trapdoor was open.

The house had always been a sensitive area. Violation of this above all places inside the boundaries of his territory he viewed as something of a personal insult. The last time someone had barged in, he had torn one of them open with his bare hands, and it had been as awful as it had been satisfying. But it had been just that – an insult. Not a  _threat._ Jason was not accustomed to feeling threatened. Most things that were normally considered threats to other people were mere inconveniences to him. The risk of someone escaping lay more in the potential of drawing yet more people he would then have to dispatch than anything else, when he would much rather have been left alone. But he felt threatened now. The last time someone had barged in, there had been nothing but memory to protect. That was not the case anymore.

Something at once ferocious and fragile roiled in the spaces where his lungs were supposed to be, and once again, he forced the emotion to the background, having neither the time nor the freedom to fully feel it. Bracing a hand against the floor he dropped into the crawlspace, the wound in his left leg searing in protest as his knees bent to absorb the noise of his landing. 

Slowly he made his way down the first few narrow feet of the tunnel, listening intently, fingertips skimming the pommel of the machete at his side. A sound reached him; the groan of metal put under heavy strain, the snap of it giving way bouncing off the dirt walls and down to him. The faint strains of voices were too warped by the texture of earthen walls to make out, but the kinetic urgency behind them was clear.

He increased his pace, his heart hammering relentlessly like an animal frantic to escape a trap and his caution ebbing with every inch of ground he covered. He wasn't sure what to expect, and the sheer vastness of the possibilities was causing the thread of worry to thicken in place around his throat, squeezing like a noose more tightly with every step. His fingers curled around the worn leather wrapping the hilt beneath his hand, the grip on it almost like a baring of claws or fangs for all that he didn't draw it. 

He would not normally be so cautious – not with vermin in his own home. The thing was, while he might no longer be capable of death, or even of a severe maiming, his was not the only flesh at stake. That said, it was full-on stupidity of the highest order not to check the room before he entered it. He knew there were two of them, knew there were enough nooks laid thick with shadow to make ambush easy – to say nothing of the potential weapons. But even knowing all this there was nothing that could keep him from striding straight into the cavernous room, or his eyes from immediately dropping to Whitney's corner. 

The bed was empty but for the manacles which lay in a broken shambles. Broken glass littered the space around the crate and several books had tipped from the surface to the ground, pages splayed beneath their parted covers. Dirt had been kicked up onto the end of the mattress as though left in the wake of a struggle. But what made his stomach drop like a stone in free-fall was none of these things, but rather that she was gone. 

For the space of a single terrible second, the world ceased to turn. 

He hadn't allowed himself to feel it before, afraid of what his own response might be, but now everything he had forced into submission in order to reassert supremacy over himself came rushing through like water breaking through a dam. The tumult couldn't be picked apart into individual, definable pieces. It was just upheaval: a rising, flooding, consuming mass of it.

His hands fell limp at his sides. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think, could only stare at the empty space that had ceased to be anything other than hers and feel his heart squeeze within the fist that seemed to have reached inside and gripped it. Anguish laced the dread now realized, helpless loss, and a terror beyond what he had thought possible to produce rose, filling his chest, his throat, his mouth, slick and foul, and tasting of silt and pond scum. 

He completely forgot her earlier pleas for freedom. It did not occur to him that she might very well have met these strangers as saviors of a sort, suited to granting her the release that he had refused, nor that he might choose to interpret it as the will of fate, to let go of any remaining sense of responsibility to her. He was too raw, still bleeding emotions alien and powerful that he didn't know how to manage. The sight of the empty corner, the broken cuffs, unhinged something inside him. It took whatever scraps were left of the rational human man he might once have been and buried them deep, replacing them with a part of himself so deeply entrenched in things he didn't fully understand, primal and beastly. That saw only that not only had the strangers trespassed on his land and violated his sanctuary, but they had also stolen something from him. And the control he had clung to – that he held so vitally dear – gave way as the storm-tossed sea of emotion crested and swallowed him whole. 

The machete was unsheathed and in his hand before he was consciously aware of having once again reached for it, his head snapping forward and his body surging into motion. The scuffed ruts in the dirt were clue enough to tell him which path they'd taken, but he hardly seemed to need it. As had happened only the once before it felt as though he were being drawn forward by something almost magnetic, as though he were being directed by a singular focus so sharp that his body no longer felt like his own. It had become a force, driven to the resolution of a single goal.

The sheer strength of that goal, the need behind it, might have alarmed him if he had the attention to spare for it. But he had no thought to question it, no thought to analyze the why or what it changed. In the moment, none of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was getting to her because she...she was his.

The thought shocked him, deep down where he was still able to feel such a thing. But the instant it came to him he knew it was the culmination of numerous little acts and decisions he had made over weeks. Why it only now seemed solidified he had no idea, but he knew it to be true. In fact, it was almost a relief to know it. Or it would have been were it not for the powerful surge of certainty. 

He might have let them go before, let them scuttle back to their dirty, noisy towns with their miserable lives if they had left well enough alone. But it was much too late for that now. She was his _-_  and these foul, insipid human vermin  _would not_  take her from him.

This time he welcomed the rage, enveloped himself within the burning heat of it and allowed it to fuel him as he followed at a headlong run. It had been a long time since he had been down this particular path, but he still knew it, the turns and obstacles, the subtle rise roughly halfway down that threatened to turn an unwary ankle. He recalled it ended abruptly, but also that he had fashioned an escape route leading from it as he had to all of the other branches. It was one of the older and more dangerous ones, and not well concealed, if he remembered right, which did nothing to improve his temper as he charged along the route. If he could catch them before they found it...

Which of course he didn't. By the time he rounded the last shallow bend two of them had already made it through the opening, the last one just beginning to crawl inside.

He experienced the briefest spark of hope at the realization that the lower half of the body still dangling halfway out of the new tunnel belonged to a girl, only for it to be instantly smashed. Even without seeing the girl’s face he knew she wasn’t Whitney. It wasn’t the different clothes, or even the scent of her once he got near enough to catch it. It was the shortness of her legs, the too-round shape of her backside. He supposed it should have made him uncomfortable to realize that he had paid enough attention to Whitney’s body to be able to tell so quickly and beyond doubt, but in the moment he didn’t had the time for shame or discomfort, or anything beyond the desperate, all-devouring fury. This girl was in the way. Standing between him and Whitney –  _his_  Whitney. 

The fact that the girl was turned away and in a highly vulnerable position didn't give him pause. Jason had no misgivings where it concerned administering a blow when a victim's back was turned. For him there was nothing like honor tied to killing, just as he did not view it as sport. He didn't care whether his prey saw him coming or not – in fact he would rather they didn't if it meant keeping the encounter quick and as clean as possible. Such as now. 

The machete slipped through ribs as though he were cutting through clay as he thrust the blade forward, straight through unprotected back. He could feel the sharp jerk of her pain, or realization, reverberate all the way up to his elbow, and while it was far from pleasant, he didn't remain focused on it for long.

Over the course of those first few days he had become increasingly familiar with the precise pitch and tone of Whitney's scream to the point where it had turned from a single drop amidst a void of thousands to a singularity, to the point where he could have picked it out of a chorus of voices. So when he heard it then, that scream he had not heard in weeks – shrill and high with horror – he felt it all the way down to the marrow of his bones. Some primal, hitherto untapped part of his brain heard the very particular vein of utter dread in her voice and burned with a savage need to track down whatever had put it there and tear it limb from limb. 

Before this night, he'd thought he knew anger, thought it as familiar as the shade of trees, as cool earth. And perhaps it had been. But the anger of before had been the lick of flame at the end of a match, a quick, bright flare which inevitably consumed its source and burnt itself to smoke. Even the anger of moments ago, hot and searing, was a mild, meek thing compared to the black, blazing rage that rippled like oil-fire through him now. He would tear the entire tunnel down around himself to get to her if he had to. To get her back, to get her  _safe._

With a brutal yank he slid the machete free. He grabbed a fist full of the girl's sweater, dragging her body back and out of the tunnel mouth until she spilled to the ground in a tangled heap of limbs, the gashes in her back and chest peeling open like splitting seams.

Crouching, he peered through the opening in time to see the tall young man he remembered from earlier that night by the burnt totem poles shuffling hurriedly back. And just behind him, Jason could just see Whitney's face, stark and pale in the yellow glare of the lights. 

He reached without thinking, empty palm shaping to the rough curve of the packed wall as the young man cursed, and Jason’s vision narrowed, centering on the places where the man's fingers dug into the flesh of her forearm, her waist – grabbing her, shoving her forcefully back and down along the branching pathway.

A silent growl of frustration rumbled at the back of his throat. They were too far away to reach now, and even if he followed there were variables outside of his control. For one thing, it was what the man would expect, and in keeping Whitney so close he had all but eradicated any leverage Jason might have had. Weapons, size, power, all meant nothing when his prey possessed a shield with a beating heart.

He could not guarantee her safety, and to risk it consciously was something he would not do. Following would do nothing but put him right where he was expected to be. And if he could not follow…

Swiftly he rose, bypassing the fresh corpse and backtracking all the way to the main chamber. He took another of the tunnel branches heading in a parallel direction, the use of which would allow him to circle around them and reach the point where the other tunnel let out before they did, and hopefully catch them by surprise. 

*

“Look! I think this might be a way out.”

Whitney’s hands closed around the sides of the rough wooden ladder, craning her head back to peer up at the jagged hole in the tunnel ceiling it led to. It was so much darker up there than in the tunnels, without the lights to illuminate what lay beyond.

Clay’s breath brushed her hair as he came up behind her to look. It came as hard in his throat as her own did, a symptom of the breakneck pace they had used to get there and the adrenaline coursing thick as syrup in their blood. Fortunately there had been no detritus in the second branch of tunnels and hardly any obstacle aside from the odd rough patch in the dirt, but the only reason neither of them had turned an ankle or twisted a knee was because of pure, stupid luck.

“Ok,” Clay said, “let’s see where it goes.”

She could tell he was still in shock over Jenna’s death, but he was managing it far better than she had during her first night there. Somehow she still had a lock on her feelings about the matter, mostly due to the fact that for all that it appeared Jason was no longer following right on their heels she felt no safer than she had.

There was no way he had just let them go. She had never been more certain about anything in her entire life. He wouldn’t have refused her before only to do so now, when she was accompanied by a stranger who very much represented a threat on top of having committed the offense of setting foot on his land. No, he wasn’t letting them go.

So, then…where was he?

Setting her foot to one of the lower rungs she hefted herself upward. The leather cord that had been used to lash the wood together creaked in complaint under the strain of so much weight after all the years of disuse, but it held together as they climbed. A couple of old boards had been laid over the hole from the outside, which were easily knocked aside when pushed.

As she levered herself out, she experienced a moment of vertigo. Blinking rapidly to adjust her eyes to the new, far dimmer cast of light she took in the new surroundings with some confusion until the gears in her brain could click slowly into place and she realized they were in a broken down school bus.

The vehicle had been overturned so that it lay on its side like a beached whale, creating the illusion that the world had tilted sideways and gravity right along with it. Tree limbs and roots had forced their way through broken glass and rusted gaps in metal seams to curl gnarled and knotted around cracked vinyl seats, making the interior look like a remnant of some civilization long since reclaimed by nature.

Metal clanged as Clay climbed out beside her, head swiveling as he stood to take in the rows of seats to their right, the line of windows above them before gesturing for her to head for the front of the bus.

She made her way through a veil of dry, twig-thin branches, her steps muffled by the carpet of dried leaves and fir needles that littered what had become the floor. They were lucky it had fallen to rest upon the driver’s side, leaving the door facing up toward the sky rather than pressed into the ground. Chances were they could have managed to wrestle one of the windows open, or else break the already plenty cracked glass, but it would be much faster – and safer – to use the door if they could. It was stuck, of course, the gears clogged with dirt and grime, but after banging at the hinges with a closed fist Clay managed to bend the folding panels into the open position.

He went up first, and even with his advantage of height and longer legs he had to jump to grab hold of the outer edge of the door’s frame, or even to use the sideways steps. Metal clanged against his knees as he climbed out and turned back for her.

“Give me your hand!” he called, setting one of his feet back on the topmost step as he reached for her.

She grabbed hold of a nearby root, using it as leverage in order to take her brother’s hand. His grime-streaked fingers closed tight about her wrist, and she gripped the side of the nearest seat with her other to help hoist herself out. She had just managed to reach the bottom-most step when she saw it – the ghostly white oval of the mask emerging from the dark over his shoulder and she screeched reflexively.

Jason’s great hands came down on Clay’s shoulders, gripping him by the back of his jacket and she felt the power of it in Clay’s startled gasp, the force with which Clay’s hand was ripped from hers. He hauled her brother away as though he were lifting a chair, something with mass and weight that he felt, but which didn't come close to slowing him, and she could see no more, could only hear her brother yelling for her to run as if there was anywhere to go – as if there was any way she could.

“Clay—” she screamed, lightning crackling in her fear. “ _Clay!_ ”

Sounds of scraping and scuffling echoed along the metal walls, sounds of struggle. She twisted, craning her head back, trying to see through glass frosted halfway opaque by dirt as her heart shuddered in terror and hopelessness and sharp, bitter fury.

Her palms struck what had once been the roof in a burst of anguished temper. “Stop it!” she yelled, and banged again, this time with a fist that ached fiercely from the ferocity with which she struck the still very solid metal. Glass shattered behind her. She whipped around in time to see Clay’s head come through one of the now broken windows, shards of it raining down amongst the fir needles. He was limp, unmoving, either stunned or worse and Whitney couldn’t tell if she was going to pass out or vomit.  

One of Jason’s hands fisted in Clay’s dark hair, lifting his head as if he meant to slam it into the window frame.

“No— _stop it!_ ”

The grip at the back of Clay’s head loosened. As she watched, the white shape of the mask paused, angled toward her to peer owlishly down through the streaked glass of the adjoining windowpane. Clay shifted, emitting a soft, winded sound and the clamp about her heart eased somewhat. He was alive, thank god. At least until…

Jason straightened. Through the glass she saw him stand, felt the shudder and groan of the bus as he moved away from where her brother lay.

Confusion swirled inside her momentary relief. Why hadn’t Jason killed him? He had to have known Clay was still alive, killing was what he did and he was very good at it. She didn’t have it in her to believe that he could have somehow missed that his newest victim-to-be had still been moving, still _breathing_. He had been about to smash Clay’s brains in, but then he hadn’t. Why? Surely not because she’d yelled at him to stop.

No, that wasn’t it. It didn’t matter anyway. What mattered was getting Clay on his feet and away from here.

She backed away from the door, turning in a haphazard circle and raking her brain for what to do. She had to incapacitate Jason, at least long enough to buy them some time. Although just how exactly she was supposed to incapacitate a man the size of a bear she had no freaking clue.

Jason’s boots met the metal of the steps and she swore under her breath, twisting madly as her eyes darted across the row of seats. The bus had been built with them lowered for the sake of the driver’s visibility; meaning that to sit, one would have had to step down from the shallow lip of the raised aisle. Grasping the metal bars on which they were bolted she heaved herself up, nestling her feet onto the narrow perch created by overturned step, hiding herself within the niche of the seat.

She heard each step he took down into the belly of the bus. She shouldn’t have, he had no reason to be obvious when he knew full well she was more than aware of his presence. And yet that he did it tugged at something inside her.

Her mind raced, knowing she had only moments to decide what to do and grasping at nothing but air. All she seemed to be able to conjure was the vision of how he had stopped mid-killing blow, how he had turned his face to her and seemed to realign his priorities away from the death that had seemed to be the alter at which he had been raised to worship. Which was untrue and unhelpful, but she simply couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something important she wasn’t seeing.

The metal creaked gently as he walked, making his way down the side of the bus, growing ever closer. He took his time about it, which felt like a special kind of torture though it wasn’t meant to be.

When he finally came within view she had already been holding her breath, and what had begun as a method of regaining some measure of calm became the necessity for silence. His head was turned down to the floor, studying the hole through which they had climbed up from the tunnels as though trying to discern if she’d gone back down.

He stepped to the side then, shoulders angling to face her straight on, yet with the mask limiting his periphery he didn’t see her until he fully lifted his head.

His eyes met hers, and there was _relief_ in them. Relief and surprise and something else she didn’t recognize but that reminded her of the unburdening she felt upon coming home after a difficult day. His head tilted ever so slightly, eyes creasing curiously as if to ask what she was doing perched up there, and the sight of that familiar movement seized her by the heart and cruelly twisted.

Right before she drew up her knees and kicked him straight in the chest.

He staggered backward, shoulders striking the metal roof, and she knew it was nearly all out of shock than any strength of hers. She had counted on it, after all – counted on his trust, his affection. Counted on it only to use it against him.

He wouldn’t understand….and it wasn’t his fault. None of it was. He didn’t know they were related, or even that they knew each other. He must have thought she’d been taken away against her will, maybe that she had been hurt or scared, hence the use of sound to alert her to where he was. He had been coming to check on her, to make sure she was all right – and yes, he _had_ set the importance of this above killing Clay – not realizing that she had been actively working against his efforts all night.

Well, he would know it now.

She couldn’t have planned it better. His foot caught the edge of the tunnel opening and gravity did the rest of the work to drag him down. She could almost feel the impact of his ribs meeting the rough transition between earth and metal as he caught himself with both arms, and would have sworn she tasted blood in her mouth.

She tripped as she jumped back down from the seat, her knees and hip smacking the bus’s metal frame with a hollow bang she felt rattle all the way up to the spaces between her teeth. Whether it was the world’s form of punishment, or her own body’s way of declaring its shock and rebellion against what she’d just done, it didn’t really matter. A dry sob forced its way from her throat as she struggled to her feet and stumbled for the door.

“Whitney!”

Clay’s voice, muffled by metal and glass. He was up again, conscious and calling for her.

Her hands were shaking as she gripped the bar of the front most seat, the action putting the layers of gauze wrapped about her wrists directly in her line of sight. Sadness and regret throbbed in her belly like hunger at the sight of them: the bandaging so carefully administered to keep her skin from chafing, and she had to fight the urge to look back. What was done was done, and it would do her no good to dwell. Jason’s patience was married to a formidable relentlessness, and she knew what little harm – if any – she had done to him wouldn’t delay him long. She had her own priorities to see to, and right now they couldn’t be him. That didn’t stop her from despising herself.

Bracing her foot against the wheel well she leapt, just managing to grab the frame of the door with her fingertips. With a grunt she pulled, the muscles in her arms straining far past the point of comfort.

Clay’s face came into view – bloodied at the forehead, but otherwise whole – his hands tucking beneath her arms to help her as she struggled out onto the side of the bus. The sky had opened up, unleashing a downpour that held the bite of fall in the stinging chill as it hit the skin of her upturned face. The water had already formed a thin, slippery film across the surface of the earth that broke and slid beneath their feet as they dropped to the ground, inhibiting their ability to run in spite of Clay’s hoarse urging for them to hurry.

“This way,” he called, leading the way toward the silhouette of the barn up ahead, looming over them from the dark like the shadow of fate. And for all the misery she was doing her best to choke down like bile, Whitney followed.

 ~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick acknowledgement that last chapter was chapter 13 and that’s kind of perfect.
> 
> I almost didn’t finish this this weekend due to the fact that some of the work I’d done on the last scene abruptly and mysteriously vanished even with my crazy email’s constant auto-save function turned on and having manually saved at least twice because I’ve lost work before and now I’m a manic repeat-saver. (Just saved right now.) I didn’t lose a whole lot, maybe five paragraphs, but I was really goddamn frustrated and the timing was really bad so I had to wait to try and feverishly jot down what I remembered having written before driving home from work. It was unpleasant. (And saved again. This is what I do. Constantly. I’ll stop referring to it now.) It’s really thanks to the comment I got this morning from “Lila” that softened my frustration and encouraged me to knuckle down and work on it again, and I’m really glad I did. Because…
> 
> Finally we get some SWEET EMOTIONAL FAMILY REUNION FEELS. I changed the way they got her out of the handcuffs, because really the idea of just banging at them and possibly cutting Whitney’s fucking hand off seems like a great idea. And, ok, no I don’t actually know if cracking them open like that is possible, but it might be. It still seems less dangerous and worth trying to me. 
> 
> Also: if Jason is as hell bent on getting Whitney back, as he clearly is, he’s not going to just plod cautiously. He’s going to charge in there and fuck your shit up. And you can’t tell me he doesn’t hear all that banging on the chains. Plus, I have a BIG issue with the fact that when she’s hiding in the bus and he KNOWS it’s just her inside, WHY does he pull the machete??? Unless he actually means to hurt her – which I don’t believe, because of his reaction to finding her (that tiny “what’cha doing?” head tilt though) – or unless he thinks she’s a threat…which I also doubt, at least in a way that would require a big fucking sharp thing. Nope. REJECTED. 
> 
> Once again the problem with this movie’s sense of distance and time rears its head. Most of the time when watching I can mentally suspend my skepticism and go with it, but it’s different when writing. I actually had to sketch out a super rough and shitty map to try and orient myself to where everything in this movie world was in relation to everything else…and I still kind of don’t have it figured out. Why? Because it was eating up too much time to make the crappy map – time I wanted to be spending writing. So there are more than likely directional and time-taking inconsistencies in this story for which I apologize…but at this point I honestly do not care enough to fix them. :/ There are other things I would rather focus on, like relationships and the psycho-emotional states of my leads. You know. The reasons why we’re all really here. 
> 
> Speaking of: this was a challenging chapter in very specific ways, because there’s so much conflict in Whitney right now, and she’s really only consciously aware of some of it. I tend to want to show and tell and give EVERYTHING, and curbing that impulse was really difficult with her here.
> 
> Real talk – Jenna’s death makes me sad. She’s genuinely nice, and she follows all the slasher don’t-do rules. But I also really vehemently don’t like that she never really tells Trent to fuck off with his attitude, plus she really doesn’t seem really surprised or bothered that he’s banging Bree…??? I don’t know. I think what makes me saddest is that she and Clay could’ve got together and she could learn some self-respect from a guy who respects her. I know I could have changed it, and I really did seriously start trying to figure out how, but in the end I’m trying to actively change as little as possible, and her death actually adds to something I’m exploring. So I kept it. I’m sorry, Jenna. You deserved better. 
> 
> Finally: thank you all so much for still being here, even though I’m not the fastest to update. All your comments and kudos and follows make this adventure a much more fun one. You guys are awesome.
> 
> Until next time!


	15. Devil's Backbone

* * *

 

The barn proved to be farther away than it had appeared, requiring them to climb a shallow slope that felt like scaling a cliff-face in rain-slick dirt and wade their way through what seemed like a few leagues worth of trees. Whether it was the dark or the rain or the sheer necessity, or all of it combined, the night itself seemed to have warped the distance as it appeared to their eyes. Whitney was soaked to the skin by the time they reached it, shoes and jean hems cakes with mud, and while Clay fared a bit better in his jacket his hair stuck to his cheeks and neck in wet tendrils.

The wide front doors had been left open, which seemed odd, especially when nothing moving or seemingly alive appeared to be inside. It was the kind of barn used for storage and a work space, not for livestock. And for all that there was a light on overhead, the place had an air of having been left untouched for some time.

First there was the light itself, clinging to the ceiling between first and second floors and offering the dimming, souring luminescence of an old bulb. Then there was the dust, a thin layer of the ultra-fine, almost filmy dust produced when shredding wood products, too fine even to be called sawdust. The surfaces were laden with it, with so few patches cleared off that it almost might have been regular dust. There were the clear signs of projects started and left half-finished: an open oilcan, a wheelbarrow of wood-scraps, with a few pieces left on the floor as though dropped mid-work. A magazine had been left open on a wooden spool off in a far corner below the open-slat stairwell, as though someone had set it down mid-perusal only moments ago.

Then there was the main feature of the barn’s interior: the wood chipper. An evil-looking specimen from the bestiary of machinery that was likely far more dangerous than its worth and that probably violated every code that existed for such a tool.

The entire building gave Whitney the creeps, but not at all in the way Jason’s house once had. Something other than ghosts haunted this place – although it was entirely possible she was simply suffering from a stress-induced overactive imagination. 

She had only followed Clay inside out of the assumption that he knew something she didn’t; that he was retracing the path he had made in finding her back out to a road, a vehicle, something. But he was scanning the walls, the equipment packed inside as he made his way forward, and not in the way of someone looking for a specific endpoint. 

She was starting to feel the internal pressure of time ticking away again. It was beginning to collude with the guilt coating the back of her mouth, the weird strains of sadness that were twining amidst the fear that had remained at an every fluctuating high for she didn't know how many hours. The sense of danger pressing inward on her chest increased. It almost felt as if she were lying flat on her back with a hand splayed across her sternum, pushing her down, the bones protecting her chest cavity creaking beneath the weight. Normally she liked the rain, liked the soothing white-noise of the repetitive sound. Just now though, the incoherent, plinking rhythm of it upon the roof above them were jangling her nerves something awful.

“Why are you stopping?” she asked.

"Hide," he ordered shortly, shooed her back toward a row of barrels pushed up against a piece of dusty machinery before starting forward. 

She blinked, taken aback. “What—Clay…”

One of his hands went to his side, where she only just now saw the knife strapped there to his belt. Not as long or with the same curve as the one Jason carried in partner to the machete, but large nonetheless. He drew it with the soft shushing noise that accompanied the graze of sharp steel against leather sheath – a sound with which she had become very familiar – and angled his head to look around a corner into an empty stall. He looked like he was checking for movement, as if he anticipated something jumping out at them from the shadows. 

Unease trickled down her spine like a drop of cold sweat. “What are you doing?” she hissed at him, pacing anxiously after him. “You have to go, _now._ ”

Turning briefly at the waist he shot her a quelling glance.

“ _Hide,_ ” he repeated with the emphasis of a big brother who expected to be obeyed and clearly he had forgotten who his sister was because she was half an inch away from smacking the back of his head and blistering his hide with words straight out of their mom's book of worst scoldings imaginable. Except he had just turned to the wall at his right to study row upon neat row of tools – specifically the ones with sharp edges.

“Are you—" she began, only to swallow the unspoken question because clearly the answer was right there for her to witness as he seized the handle of a handheld scythe and plucked it from its resting place.

Yes, he was an idiot. A gigantic fucking idiot of the highest  _fucking_ caliber, arming himself because he intended to stand his ground and fight. 

"You can’t fight him!"

"Shh." 

" _Clay—"_

Her brother turned – no doubt to tell her to shut the hell up – just as the window behind him imploded. 

Glass rained in glittering shards to the barn floor as two great arms extended through the frame to lock about Clay's torso. Whitney staggered backward on pure physical reflex from the sound and the spray of glass, nearly tripping over an overturned shovel as what little color there had been in Clay's face left it in a flood of white. His eyes went wide and his mouth dropped open as if to unleash a shout that didn't come. He gasped like a fish on dry land, struggling beneath the arms clamped about him while she watched, frozen, her veins crackling with ice as her nightmare came true right before her eyes. 

The scythe blade flashed, arcing sharply backward as Clay drove it into the meat of Jason's shoulder – once, then twice – grunting with the exertion.

She felt her stomach heave at the sight, the glint of metal, the way it shone red when Clay pulled it free. She had taken half a darting step forward before prey-animal instinct tightened locked her joints to keep her firmly where she was; well out of range of impending danger and mind blank as paper.

Jason gave a heaving shove and Clay went sprawling across the barn floor, straight into a stack of crates that toppled around him with a wooden clatter.

"Run," Whitney hissed, shifting anxiously where she stood. Not that Clay would have obeyed even if he’d heard her. He rolled back to his feet, whirling somewhat unsteadily to face the opposition and she had to bite back the urge either to scream at him, or to launch herself at his back and drag him bodily away.

She knew her brother had gotten into his fair share of fights, most of them back in high school when to be an artist and yet look like a jock was to be uncool to the point of regular ridicule. But a couple of kids scrapping over petty school-age grievances was nowhere near what this was going to be; a full-on brawl where lives were on the line. He was plenty brave, that much was obvious just from what she was seeing now. Brave enough perhaps even to have stared a mountain lion in the eye and commanded it in silence to move. But she had read enough charts from patients transferred from her clinic to the ER across the city to know that bravery wasn't what won fights.

Without a care for the jagged remnants of the panes, Jason planted a hand against the low-seated frame of the window and vaulted the wall, landing with a muted crunch of scattered glass. Clay darted forward, attempting to use the opening. He slashed with the scythe, delivering a wide, brutal swipe fully intended to cleave open the belly and spill what lay inside.

For a terrible moment Whitney was sure the hit would land and it felt as though a fist were squeezing at her heart, the edges of her vision going dark – and it was with a not altogether unexpected snap of shock that she realized her terror was not reserved solely for her brother.

She felt almost faint, as though the inhale sucked in through her nose dissipated before it could reach her lungs – a feeling which left her in a tight rush as Jason dodged with a swift sidestep.

A massive hand snapped out, fisting in the sleeve at Clay's shoulder as he seized the other man and threw him down. And it was not at all the kind of throw she might have expected from him – almost lazy, like tossing a bale of hay. There was real hostility behind it, a violence bordered on savagery. For a second time Clay hit the ground, one of the crates he had overturned breaking beneath him with the same awful crack of splintering wood that would forever be tied to blood and death to her ears.

She knew this rage. She had seen it before; in the hands that had dragged Mike down through rotted floorboards, in the eyes that had later turned on her, burning black like hellfire coals. She saw it now in the way Jason bore down on her brother as Clay scrambled backward, trying to gain enough distance to get back on his feet. And yet…it wasn't quite the same. 

She hadn't realized how cold his anger usually was; cold and clear and almost completely impassive. He had no real personal stake in any such encounter aside from a grudge that – or so she suspected – had become almost more habit than ruled by real temper. Vengeance for a remembered slight, not a direct one. It was almost robotic, a tune on a record played so many times over that the sound was scratched and faded and worn. He knew the outcome of each incident before it ever occurred and nothing any person could do was capable of surprising him, let alone bringing him any real danger.

Unlike this. Unlike now. 

Because this wasn't just a fulfillment of his self-assigned mandate. Clay had done far worse than simply trespass. He'd entered Jason's home – his  _sanctuary_. That made it personal. 

Clay’s shoulder banged the corner of an empty livestock stall as he struggled to stand, groping for something she couldn’t make out until he flung himself at Jason, swinging the sledgehammer gripped tightly in his hand.

She let out a screech of dismay, yet Jason had already leaned sharply backward, narrowly preventing the heavy metal bludgeoning end from colliding with his ribs.

Clay attempted a second swing, the tendons in his neck visibly straining with the effort, but to no avail. Jason darted forward, moving with the fluid, whip-quick speed that didn’t seem possible in a man so big, gripping the handle and, with a powerful combination of wrench and shove, sent Clay crashing into the wall with a shuddering rattle of tools and old wood.

Clay’s face constricted, pain flashing across his features and in the way his spine curved away from the beam he’d struck. The cut across his cheek from his encounter with the bus windows was bleeding anew, a trickle of fresh red trailing down toward his lip. His eyelids fluttered briefly as though he were trying to blink back spots from his vision.

She had to stop this. How did she stop this?

She had already started forward, guided by the need to get to her brother, when Jason hurled the sledgehammer to the floor with a vicious burst of temper that had her shying defensively back for all it hadn’t been aimed at her. It was unlike anything she had ever seen him do. He so rarely moved without clear purpose, and at first she didn’t understand why he would throw away a perfectly good – perfectly _lethal_ – weapon like that. That was, until the machete came free, unsheathed from the straps at his side with that soft, almost melodic whisper of steel, and her pulse stuttered with a fresh stab of panic.

“No—!” she cried, but it made no difference.

Jason’s slash seemed to slit the very air in two. Clay had caught the glint of metal and ducked so the blade sank into wood rather than his flesh, but Whitney was as much caught up in the blow itself as much as his escape.

The swing had been vicious, from the core, meant to cleave the body of a grown man in half. And Jason…Jason all but _radiated_ violence. The space around him might not blur and warp the way it did around incredible heat, but she felt it all the same, blazing the way embers would just as they were stoked back into a flame. A rage so different from what she’d seen in him before, heady and raw. There was fear there too, tangled in snarls amidst the rage. Fear of…something, and which caused her to rethink her earlier estimation as to its cause.

Oh, it was personal, of that much she was positive. But the direction, the focus wasn’t right. Even when she and Mike had violated the sanctity of the house he hadn’t been like this. Brutal, yes, and awfully so. But even then the brutality had felt contained, directed, as though he had trained himself to wield it like he did his weapons – efficiently and with discipline. There had been none of this unrestrained wildness.

That was the moment when she finally understood, as though a set of gears that had clashed and clanged in contention all night had suddenly stopped fighting and slipped smoothly into place. 

He was  _protecting_  her.

She hadn't seen it at the time, too consumed by stress and the relentless need to hurry. But looking back on it there had been an urgency to his tracking them in the tunnels that she hadn't expected to be there. He'd seemed almost frantic to get to her, as if acting as much on emotion as purpose. The way he'd reached for them, not quite entering the second tunnel, as though something he'd seen had urged him toward caution. Hell, the fact that he hadn't simply charged in from the trapdoor like a monstrously pissed-off rhinoceros and impaled them all spoke to a sentiment that didn't fit next to any of the reactionary responses she recognized. It wasn't the behavior of the cold, calculated killer. It was that of the man who had inserted himself between her and a big-ass predatory cat without a thought of the cost to himself. 

From Jason’s perspective any and all strangers were a threat to him – a threat he had had a great deal of time to acclimate himself to facing. Under normal circumstances he would have handled tonight’s trespass like any other. Except it was anything but normal. Her presence had seen to that. Her presence, and the fact that he valued her enough to keep her not only alive, but content…enough to stay a killing blow to someone he saw as a threat because she had told him to stop.  

Whatever she was – captive, friend, did it really matter? – to his eyes, Clay and Jenna had stolen her from where he’d tucked her safe and out of harm’s way, where she belonged. He had been trying to rescue her, in his way, just as Clay had.

At least, it had begun that way. Until she had gone and chosen strangers over him.

And of course she had. She wanted to leave, as she had from the beginning. What were promises but empty words, after all? As soon as a viable opportunity had presented itself she had done what she could to get away, and clearly didn’t care how she had to hurt him to do it.

Self-loathing welled in the back of her throat, bitter and foul like bile, acerbic as the pain that wrenched behind her sternum.

Clay had turned his evasion into an attack, launching himself headfirst into Jason’s chest. His arms came up and around Jason’s waist, and it was just enough to throw off the other man’s impeccable balance to send them both stumbling into one of the thick beams fortifying the roof. The machete clattered to the barn floor. Clay straightened, head thrown back and fist raised – then he faltered, unsure where to direct his punch when the mask made any blow to the face wasted effort. The hesitation was brief, no more than half a second. But it was long enough.

One of Jason’s hands rose, quick as a snake, seizing Clay by the wrist. The other rose to brace against Clay’s collar as he twisted his torso sharply to the left. Clay struck the side of the wood chipper with a hollow clang, the breath leaving him in a wheeze as Jason’s fingers tightened around the base of his throat.

And really, it had only been a matter of time. As tall as her brother was, as determined, as brave, Jason had him beat in every category from size to stamina and force of will, to sheer brute strength. Clay had been tiring fast, but Jason just seemed to feed from the scuffle, as sure as he’d been born to it which, in a way, she suppose he had been. Not that it stopped the dread from kicking at the pulse throbbing in her temples.

"Stop it," she shrieked, her voice raking in her raw throat.

The command had worked once before. Was it foolish to hope it might again?

" _Stop!"_  

Her words had no effect. Clay was choking, gasping for air, and Jason’s fingers were twisting into his hair, long and powerful and she knew that he would kill Clay right there with his bare hands. He was going to bash her brother’s head in as he had neglected to before. Until nose broke and cheekbones caved in. Until eyes burst as skull gave way to reveal a pulp of blood and brain tissue. Or maybe in another second he would reach for the knife still sheathed at his hip, turn the blade and drive it deep into belly or throat in order to watch the life bleed dry.

There had to be a way to stop it. There _was_. She just wasn’t seeing it, and all the while she didn’t her hourglass was running down to the last few precious grains of sand, which only made it that much harder to goddamn think.

Her hand had risen to grip the locket, though she couldn’t remember moving to do it, the enameled surface slick with rain; and as the cold metal of the clasp seared into her palm all the fear and kinetic horror raging inside her went abruptly calm, as though she had just stepped into the eye of her own internal hurricane.

“Jason.”

The name came softly, so hoarse that it was nearly a whisper, yet it had the effect of a gunshot.

Jason’s head snapped around so fast it was a wonder something didn't crack from the force of it. She took a step toward him, the first real step she had dared, and while it was difficult to see, she knew his eyes were riveted to her – all that inscrutable focus narrowed to the single point of her face. 

Planting a great hand against Clay’s chest, he shoved, sending her brother to the barn floor in a wheezing heap. His gaze never once leaving her.

“It’s ok,” she soothed, though her voice shook like a leaf in her mouth. 

He echoed her step with one of his own, a slow, almost cautious thing, as though he weren’t certain whether what he was seeing or hearing were real. He had a right to be wary; after all, she had done everything she could to evade him, trick him. But there, entwined within the caution was a delicate hope so keen she could almost taste it. Hope and question and longing.

A few weeks ago she would have put that look down to her resemblance to his mother and a wish for some kind of resurrection through her. But she knew better. She knew it as solidly as her body knew breath that he was hers. Utterly and completely. He would do whatever she asked of him, regardless of the risk. She could ask him to impale himself upon his own machete right here and now and he would do it without hesitation…if only she stayed.

Over the line of one broad shoulder, she caught the flicker of movement as Clay scrambled shakily to his feet. Jason should have noticed, should have heard, but he remained focused fixedly on her. And for a moment she allowed relief to overtake her at the chance provided for Clay to escape. Then she saw the gleam of metal, the open teeth of the bear trap Clay gripped between both hands as he crept up behind the other man – intent clear.

She might have claimed it was instinct, not conscious choice. That only belatedly had she realized the cost. But it would have been a lie. Freedom had been right there in front of her, wearing the guise of a metal trap.

She could have let him do it; could have let Clay clamp the metal jaws down into the meat of a shoulder, toss the connected chain into the motorized jaws of the wood chipper. She could have run with him. All the time she had spent trying to escape, to get home – all the tears and sweat and screams. But as she stared into the face of that freedom, it only made her feel cold.

“ _Don't!”_ she cried, throwing up an arm, fingers splayed wide. 

Clay faltered, brow creased with confusion that leveled to a defensive aggression when Jason whirled on him, powerful hand rising, curling into a fist.  "Don't," she repeated, and this time the word was not a warning but a command.

Instantly Jason's hand fell to his side, angling his body to put her back within his limited peripheral vision. In spite of her hope for it she was somewhat shocked by his quick compliance.

“It’s ok,” she repeated, with far more confidence this time. "I'm not going anywhere." 

It had begun as a platitude, mild and soothing in the way of a lullaby – promising that everything would be all right even knowing monsters sill lurked in legion just on the other side of a meaningless barrier. But the instant it left her lips, the truth of it slammed into her so hard her vision actually blurred as though she’d been hit in the face.

All night long her focus had been getting Clay to safety. _You have to go_ she had kept saying – _you_ , not _we._ She didn’t think it had been entirely conscious, but once seen she could no longer unsee it. All she had to do was think back to the moment she had seen his face peering pale and drawn at her in the harsh shadow of the tunnels, aiming the beam of his flashlight at her. At how relieved she had been that he was alive. It hadn’t occurred to her that his having found her also meant that she was saved. She had been too preoccupied by her need to get him as far away from Crystal Lake as possible, away from danger. Away from her. When he’d refused to go without her she had relented out of necessity, but now…she wasn’t sure she had ever intended to leave.

It was an unexpected revelation, and one which would require some close, and extreme, scrutiny when she had the time. Yet even as she drank in her own surprise she felt no inclination to modify the statement, not even when Clay’s face became stricken and white.

 _“What—_ ”

She threw him a look the equivalent of a punch in the arm and a stern demand to _shut_ the hell _up_.

Jason's masked face was swiveling back and forth between them, his desire to punish the wrong warring with the one to go to her. His hands still hung limp at his sides, but she could still sense the latent tension in him. It would not take much to pitch him back into violence. Which was something she desperately wanted to avoid.

"Jason," she called again, and she lowered her extended hand, turning the quelling gesture into one of supplication.

It was all it took to make him choose. 

He started for her, abandoning Clay to his open-mouthed gape in order to cross the barn floor with several swift strides.

Ignoring her extended hand he lifted both his own, using them to frame her face. He didn't touch her fully, merely hovered there, a fraction of an inch away, his gaze skimming up and down the length of her as if trying to determine whether she were hurt.

This whole time she had been wrong. So incredibly wrong.

She had assumed the directive to kill overpowered everything else, but it didn't. She had stood in the way of his beating Clay's brains out no less than twice tonight with no force, no threat, nothing but the power of her voice. Why? Because for whatever reason, even after everything, nothing was as important to him as she was.

A small sob caught at the back of her throat. Lifting her hand to one of his she pressed it to her cheek. It was the same hand with which he had gripped Clay by the nape of the neck, broad and wide enough to cover – or crush – her entire face, yet he merely let it rest there, fingers curving carefully around the back of her head. Gently he stroked the damp, tangled mess of her hair, his eyes softening, and once again she felt the warm, soothing feeling of letting go of the tension of the longest, most trying day of her life.

" _Whitney,"_ Clay hissed at her, the shock in his face outweighed only by his horror. " _What are you doing?_ " 

His hands were white-knuckled where they clutched the trap. Everything about his posture – tight shoulders, stiff spine, clenched jaw – screamed that he was one bad choice away from hurling himself forward and reengaging a man nearly twice his size and easily three times his strength who would crush him like a twig underfoot. Which was something she could not have. 

Though she held Jason's eyes with her own, it was to her brother she spoke, keeping her voice as calm and even as she had the power to.

"You need to go. Now." 

"What— _no_ ," Clay spluttered, "I'm  _not_  leaving you with..." 

The urge to roll her eyes was so powerful her face twitched as she checked the motion. Of all the times for him to be the supportive big brother, this was the worst possible one. He had left when she'd needed him those years ago, unable to stand the impending death sentence of mom's cancer, but now when she was all but physically shoving him top over teakettle he was planting himself like a tree and refusing? She wasn’t the one in danger here, damn it – _read_ the fucking _room_.

For all she loved her brother she could very dearly strangle him. Really, what did he think the options were? Goodness only knew what Jason would do to get her back if she left – she didn’t think wreaking Godzilla levels of destruction was an overestimation – and if Clay tried to forcibly take her he would only get himself torn in half.

"I can't leave yet," she said, and was she only imagining the frown in Jason's eyes? "I just...I can't.”

An idea occurred to her then, wild, and she knew full well she might be grasping at impossible straws, but it was the only thing she could think of.

“You know the gas station along the highway? A few miles from the sign for the Camp." 

She remembered passing the sign en route to the spot Wade and Richie had settled on as a campsite, though at the time she hadn’t thought much of it – not even enough to retain the name of the camp itself until Wade’s rather timely ghost story that night. The gas station had been a final stop for a real bathroom and any last minute supplies, and would serve as a meeting place she was relatively confident she could find again.

"I…yeah, but—" 

"Meet me there in three days and I'll explain. Around noon. I promise, I’ll be ok." 

Clay frowned, brow creasing deeply. His grip on the trap had eased slightly if the pinkish flush at his knuckles was anything to go by, but he was still clearly reluctant to leave her. 

"Trust me, please," she begged, and whether it was the word _please_ or the tone of her voice, something about it seemed to bother Jason.

The tension banished for those precious moments returned, coiling in the heavy muscles of his back and shoulders. A powerful arm curled around her waist, pulling her forward and into the shelter of his own body. His head dipped ever so slightly, angling to cast a narrow glare over one shoulder.

There was no sound, but she felt the subtle vibration of the growl as it rolled from somewhere deep within him, the fine hairs at the nape of her neck standing on end. It was pure warning: a wolf's bared teeth, a rattlesnake's hiss, a signal meant to stave off a threat that drew too near for comfort and promised swift death if it went ignored. The way he held her was aggressively protective: tight to his chest, one broad palm lying flat against her ribs, radiating hostility like heat off pavement. It was almost…possessive.

" _Go,"_  she snapped between gritted teeth, and finally Clay relented.

Bending cautiously, he lowered the trap to the floor, where he set it with a quiet metallic clank. "Three days," he agreed stiffly, backing slowly toward the shattered window, and at least he seemed to know better than to try going anywhere near the door when to do so would require passing them. "If you don't show I'm coming back here and I'm bringing the cops." 

The snort caught in her sinuses, too overwhelmed by the force of her relief to form fully at the idea of any local policemen willingly setting foot on the land surrounding Crystal Lake, rescue mission or not. He'd either have to threaten or bribe them, and even then she was fairly certain no one would come. Still, she nodded once to seal the agreement. 

The length of Jason's massive body went rigid as stone against her, suddenly alight with the subtle haze of kinetic energy as Clay reached the window, hands curving gingerly against the frame in preparation to hoist himself out. He meant to follow, she realized, follow and finish the work he had started now that he was assured she was whole and well. And in that moment, she wasn't altogether positive she could stop him again.

Half desperate and half in hope, she reached out and laid her palm against his chest. 

He startled beneath her touch, head swiveling back around and down to stare at the hand resting lightly against him – so small and frail in contrast to the swell of muscle there. His inhale was sharp as a gasp, but he neither stepped away nor made to remove her hand. 

"Don’t," she pleaded softly, tilting her head back to meet his eyes. “Please, let him go. He's my brother.”

If the word meant anything to him, he didn’t show it. Nothing in what little she could make out of his expression changed, yet she kept going, words tumbling over her tongue in jagged fits and starts.

“The bag was his—the one you brought back. I thought he was dead and didn't...he thought he was saving me. And I—" 

Her head was swimming, almost dizzy from the overload of stress she had forced her body through during this long, awful night; and she must have swayed or staggered, or something of the like, for she could feel his grip on her tighten, his empty hand rise to cup her elbow as if to prevent her from falling.

She swallowed, her throat suddenly tight with emotion too muddled to identify. Her chin wobbled, tucked down, her head dropping almost of its own will until it met the deep slope of his chest.

"Please just stay," she whispered. "Stay with me." 

*

He had thought he understood the situation, thought his directive clear. He'd thought it up until the moment he descended into the hollowed corpse of the decrepit school bus to find her – when he had turned, lifted his head, and found her folded into the alcove of a seat half a second before she struck. He had felt the soles of her shoes slam hard into his chest and he had stumbled back, startled by the blow. She had not shown him violence in such a long time that it had genuinely shocked him. But more importantly it took his assumptions by the scruff of the neck and shook like a dog intent on snapping the neck of the rat cradled in its jaws. 

She had not been taken. She had  _left._

This had been a product of choice, not force. She had chosen – was choosing the second she made the decision to lash out, to flee again point blank as he held himself there at the lip of the tunnel opening and watched as she scrambled away. He easily could have stopped her. It would have been no difficult thing to lift himself free and seize her before she could haul herself from the belly of the dead vehicle. But he had been reeling, flooded from toes to brain with so much roiling emotion that he could only have watched and done his best to choke down the truth of what had just happened.

The last time she had run, when he had hurt her ankle, his refusal to let it stand had been solid – but not founded in the reasons it should have been. It should have been about the risk, the precedent, the vow he'd made. He'd already made an exception in not killing her, and so he'd told himself that was why he'd felt such a strong need to get her back. But even then he'd known there was something else there, some other reason he either hadn't fully grasped or wanted to acknowledge. Then she had promised not to run again, a promise she had kept, and he'd had no need to further examine what it might mean to go down into the tunnel and find her gone. It had not just been the precedent, it had been because he hadn't been able to stomach what his life would have become without her there. He knew it now. He had no choice but to acknowledge it, as the reality reared back to stare him straight in the eyes, as he fell into the tunnel mouth, bone cracking against metal hard enough that he felt the clamor of impact to his very marrow. 

Confusion and hurt burst in dark stars behind his eyes, stung like a spearhead thrust through his chest. He had thought she was happy. Thought she cared, the way he had come to care, as she'd implied in her words, in her worry. Hadn't she? And she...she had  _promised._

She had also asked for freedom just that night, and foolishly he had ignored it, ignored the tears that had so alarmed him, turned his face from the devastation on hers as though to look elsewhere was to make it not real. He had chosen to go, prioritized hunting these people who hadn't mattered at all when it came right down to it. At the time he hadn't known better – he hadn't fully yet grasped the immensity of her value.

He had thought himself beyond any need – any _desire_ – for things like companionship or friendship; had been fool enough to think that Whitney’s disruption of his life had no changed that. Had thought it up until the very moment she vanished through the open door of the bus to slip from his sight. And he had been woefully, laughably wrong.

Perhaps she had never truly resembled his mother at all. Perhaps he had simply glimpsed a few vague similarities and had wished so desperately for it to be that his mind had made it so, if only for an instant. Yet that primordial, deep-rooted desire for some scrap of togetherness had been so strong that it had transcended the resemblance even as it dissolved, enough to justify his excuses not to take her life and to keep his hands gentle. He had wanted someone, deep down in the still tender core he had armored-over with old, recollected hate.

He had wanted someone…and then he had wanted her. Very specifically _her:_ this girl, this _woman_ , that had smiled at him, teased him, laughed with him – but never _at_ him – that showed sympathy and concern when she thought him hurt, had apologized for things not of her own doing, for things that were. And he had kept her, fed her, kept her safe. He had protected her: and where he had questioned the why of it before he no longer did. That was what one did with something precious and beautiful, that made him feel like a person, real and solid and present again, rather than a vengeful ghost corporeal only long enough to kill. It meant that she was important to him, and that importance far outweighed the fact that the particulars of how were too new and convoluted to deconstruct just now. And if she was so important…then he should release her.

It took him a generous handful of moments to force himself to move, to extricate himself from the bus and find the deep tracks left in the rain-swollen earth. Far longer that he should have allowed. His chest throbbed, for all the kick delivered there had done no damage that wasn't already halfway healed, and his head spun as he stared down at the tracks and tried to decide what to do.

He should leave it. He should take this as the will of fate: allow the strange man to set her free as he had not been able to, and hang the risk. He owed her as much. It would be the right thing, the selfless thing. 

But he was neither noble nor good. He was a child with the first taste of sugar on his tongue, a rabid dog with the first hint of blood slick upon his teeth. He was selfish. He was a _killer._ He was the monstrous bastard she had once deemed him to be. It might pain him – and it did, surprisingly – but a line had been crossed, and he could not go back. It felt as though a wire had been strung around his heart and between his ribs, tight and pulling like a strange sort of snare. The other end of it, though, was not stationary, and he felt the tug the farther his lack of motion allowed her to draw further away. Like a leashed thing, he followed it, and once again he hardly needed the scans he occasionally took of the ground to check the trail in order to do so. 

He began the trek in a state of dejected resolve, almost disgusted with himself and his inability to let go. But as he went, with every step the dejection seemed to jostle, with every breath, every turn of his mind, details began to sharpen and...confound.

The more he thought about it, the less sense he could make of it, and the more strange details stood out, clashing in his mind like the wrong two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle jammed badly together.

She had been crying when he'd left her – angry. Yet her anger, and even her tears, had been strange. He'd thought there might have been a tang of fear on her. Or was that an illusion made in skewed hindsight? He supposed this might have been a part of why he'd jumped so quickly to the assumption that she had been kidnapped rather than rescued, but as he took a moment to be truly, brutally honest with himself he could see now that the possibility of that had been slim to ridiculous proportions. How could she have been taken against her will when she had already wanted to go? And if she had not been afraid of the people whom he had so clearly been preparing to hunt down...what had been the cause of the fear?

What would have made her turn from contented and smiling and teasing (he distinctly recalled a lighthearted demand to be brought something in return for leaving without her early that morning) to tearful, soul-deep sorrow and pleas to be set free? What had driven her to run – to want to? After everything.

He had left off cracking the man's skull open only because he had heard her screaming. He had thought it pain, or fear, and had gone to her because - as was plenty evident now - she was priority above even the death price. She'd looked him straight in the eye before she'd struck like a snake, and when he recollected only what he had seen absent his own relief and subsequent shock, he could remember the pain that had been there, as though she didn't want to do what she was about to do - as if she were being torn straight in half. He didn't understand it; too naïve, too unworldly to decode it as if structured in another language. But he could recognize now that there was something going on that escaped his understanding. And he knew it had something to do with the man with her. 

The man Whitney clearly preferred over Jason.

He was familiar enough with jealousy. He’d felt the bitter bite of it almost constantly as a child. But to feel it stinging like barbs curling under his skin as he made his way through the mud and rain in steady pursuit was both startling and uncomfortable.

He might have stopped feeling it quite so fiercely, but he had never truly stopped envying other people their even, symmetrical features, or stopped caring how starkly they marked him different. It was an old hurt, and though it festered beneath the scab he was accustomed to it. Yet he was used to it being vague and non-specific, a general envy of people in general for their collective normalcy. To envy someone because of what they might be to another person was completely alien to him. At least it had been before tonight when it had risen up and sunk its teeth into his jugular no less than twice. But that was exactly what this was: envy of that normalcy, that symmetrical perfection, of people suited to someone as beautiful as Whitney was in ways he had never been. Never could be.  

Loathing sparked, the need to kill pooling in his mouth and singing in his veins, narrowing his focus, quickening his stride; and it had had nothing to do with the tithe and everything to do with the fact that this trespasser, this filthy, perfect human man had taken her from him.

But he would not have her.

By the time Jason had tracked them to the barn he had shoved the human pieces of himself so far down beneath the predator that he was barely cognizant of anything outside of what he could directly sense. The barn itself, the familiar terrain, the probability of location and reaction. Instinct guided him around the back, hunter reflexes urging him through the window. He had thrown himself into it, locking his arms around the man’s body and squeezing like a python, and all the burning stab of the blade into his shoulder had done was tell him he was dealing with a slightly more wily than average adversary.

The man had held his own with thanks to pure adrenaline, staving off blows that would have decimated any smaller or less astute specimen. But adrenaline didn’t last, and Jason had schooled himself in how to play the long game: the days-long rounds, the nighttime stalkings, the hunts undertaken at a headlong run. The payoff was endurance, a stamina that compounded with his size made for only one possible outcome.

He bided his time, waiting for the moment to come, not hearing Whitney screaming for him to stop for the roaring in his ears. And when it came he seized it with both hands.

Digging his fingers into tender throat he pressed just tightly enough at the jugular to send the message to his prey that the fight was over. A message instantly received it seemed, for the struggling abruptly lessened and primal fear rounded the whites of eyes that were a little too green, though why that sent a peal of sadness down his spine Jason couldn’t in the moment recall.  

There was a part of him that enjoyed it – an infinitesimal part, but a part nonetheless – being bigger, being stronger, being as much a force as a man. He might not relish the violence itself (a fact tested and which still held true), but he did enjoy having become the monster, enjoyed putting fear in the faces of those that had destroyed everything good. Everything he had once been.

His grip changed as he steeled himself for a messy kill, lip curling beneath the mask as the roaring in his ears pitched to an eager whine.

It had been his name on her lips that broke him from it, that reached past the haze of anger, the demand for blood. For an instant she seized hold of him like a puppet, turning his head, pulling his eyes to her as though by some unknown sorcery, and he had no attention to spare for the life in his hands or the death to be paid.

She held out a hand to him – pleading, beseeching – and he pushed the man away, no longer caring whether he breathed or not, but hesitated. He had assumed she would flee while he occupied himself with his blood-mongering, assumed he would have to chase her down again as he had before, but she had stood her ground…and was telling him it was ok, all while looking at him with something like relief in her face.

He was inescapably confused.

The confusion only mounted when her expression changed, horror lashing her slight form with tension cast over his shoulder and he whirled on instinct, sure, for a split second, that the moment of connection had been a trick, a ploy to distract or disarm him. A certainty that seemed proven by the trap clutched and ready in the man’s hands. He should not have felt betrayed – that reality had come and past – but he had, even if only briefly, and his fist rose as if guided by the hollow emptiness. But Whitney called again, and to obey seemed to be a thing impossible not to do.

He adjusted so he could see her at the corner of his vision, studying her as a wave of different emotions chased one another across her features. Some he recognized, surprise, awe, comprehension, but others he didn’t. He couldn’t have guessed what she would say when she spoke again, but even his guesses wouldn’t have contained what she actually said.

_“I'm not going anywhere."_

Again she extended an upturned palm, and his body knew what to do even as his brain reeled. He was searching as he reached her, looking for blood, for signs of injury, almost helpless to do otherwise. And when he had lifted a hand, not quite daring to touch her, when she had laid her hand across his and pressed his palm to her cheek…he no longer cared about anything else. As the full force of her heat bled into him, as his heart beat hard and nearly painful in his chest, he no longer cared about what she had done or why she’d done it. Any of it. The only thing that mattered in all of existence was her.

Awareness prickled at his back at the sound of a sharp inhale, a terse hiss of words. He almost turned his head, but Whitney held him with her eyes, warm and brown. She proceeded to argue with the man behind him, and with every word he was given bits and pieces of the context he’d been missing.

The man had not been a stranger to her. The revelation dawned swiftly as he listened to the sharp exchange, followed immediately by the understanding that the relationship was a close one. He could tell by the tone each used with the other, though it was more evident in her simply because he knew her better, recognized the affects fear and urgency and frustration had on her voice. How close, though? Close like the two perfect blondes twined on the bed in that house?

The image brought a fresh pang of envy, and of something else Jason hadn’t felt before – something which had him reaching impulsively for her, hand curling around her and tucking her close. In doing so he understood something he had witnessed, touch mistaken for force when it had really been this; defensive, protective, and the thought that any living thing could believe she required protection from him would have been laughable had he not been quite so occupied with the idea of Whitney being – _doing_ – that with…

He didn’t know when exactly he had bared his teeth, almost didn’t realize it until he felt the reverberation of his own growl. It was done without his express control, but only because what he had wanted was not to issue such a bland, quiet one-note warning. He had wanted words to throw, to wield as he might have any weapon, to make his position clear.

But what position was that? What exactly would he say had he the power? That Whitney was his now? She wasn’t. Not in any way. She no more belonged to him than did any other living thing, no more than any of the lives he took in order to deliver back to the earth. Just because it was what he wanted didn’t make it real, as he should well have figured out by now. Even if he’d possessed the power of speech he would have been left standing there, bristling and at a loss as to what to do with the fierce possessiveness he had no right to feel.

Movement snared his focus as the man bent slightly at the knees, gaze wavering between Jason and Whitney as he lowered the trap he had meant to use against Jason to the floor. He backed away, and instinctively Jason stiffened, the call to chase pulling like a fishing line tied tight to his gut.

A touch, soft and slight as a dove, brushed his chest. His gaze flew back to the woman nestled in the curve of his arm, her hand laid flat against the place where she had struck him so sharply before.

“Please, let him go.”

It was almost eerily easy to succumb, as though her nearness, her touch, served as a buffer of sorts, easing the pressure of the need to satiate the vow. It was novel, strange, and might haunt him later – but in the moment the choice had been easy, almost so much so that it ceased to be entirely. He could see the tithe paid and destroy something precious to him, or…he could _not_. Between the death of one human and the life of another, he chose life as he had only once before.

“He's my brother.”

Brother. Her…brother?

He had no siblings, but the concept wasn’t so foreign that it confounded him so much that it caught him by surprise. Until abruptly it didn’t. There had been green in the man’s eyes, green so bright that it had seemed too much, made him feel…too much, that didn’t belong anywhere alongside a death. A hint of russet to his dark hair. A similar slant to the bone structure in the face. A likeness – faint, but there.

She continued to speak, a jumble of words and phrases spilling from her mouth in the way of excuses with none of the empty, shallow platitude and almost more feeling than he could stand.

Suddenly it made sense why she had been unhappy when he’d left her, why she’d cried and refused to tell him why. The desperate devastation. Why she had fought him the way she had, all the while wearing regret as if it had been sewn into her skin. She hadn’t wanted to fight him at all, but she’d known her brother was there and that Jason would be compelled to kill him for his trespass; had believed that even had she told him he would still have done it.

He frowned, somewhat ruffled at this, wanting to insist that he most certainly _would not_ have. Yet he knew rationally that she had not been wrong. He couldn’t quite see himself having the capacity to hear such a thing and feel the meaning of it – or even care – had the night not proceeded in quite the way it had. Perhaps not. But if he could not be sure, how could he have expected certainty of her?

Whitney’s eyelids fluttered; tired, worn and a little sad. Then she leaned forward to rest her head against his chest, her cheek burning cool through his shirt.

She had never reached for him like that, just for the sake of touching him. As if for comfort, for solace…

"Stay..."

Her whisper trailed fine and warm along his spine, a precise echo of the only words he would ever have spoken. The flicker of unease at the man’s retreat guttered and died, the faint wail at the back of his mind going silent. For the first time in his memory he didn't feel the compulsive itch of it at the nape of his neck, the need to satisfy the demon pact he had made with the land. All the rules by which he had lived for so long subverted in the single instant it took for the tithe to bow to the greater power.

He just felt her. 

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And lo – I have corrected the canon. 
> 
> (I’m only being slightly sarcastic.)
> 
> Also, I literally finished this tonight and I apologize for any typos/weirdness as I wanted to update asap.
> 
> Anywhoodles, posting this makes me extremely anxious because I feel like there was a big crazy buildup and I can’t help feeling like no matter what I do now the rest of this story will be a letdown? I’m just in a nervous place right now, but the worry is there.
> 
> Ok, so the movie-finale change. This was another of those first really sharply defined images I had in the very conception stages of the fic. Honestly, a lot of it stems from frustration, because I physically cannot watch this part of the movie and not get angry. I just…can’t get over the waste of epic proportions in the handling of the kidnapping side-plot. Whoever’s idea it was, bless you, but also god damn whoever’s it was to BOTCH it like that. I think my feelings on the timeline have been made abundantly clear by now, but seriously. What. The. Fuck. You. Jackholes.
> 
> There is so much going on in that tiny little moment where Jason stops mid-murder because Whitney calls him. She doesn’t tell him to stop, she barely even moves, and he just fucking abandons ship (for the second time, hello). Mad props to Derek for being such an incredible physical actor that he can convey so much with barely more than a head tilt. Guh. I’m getting feels just thinking about it. And yet again I’m so disappointed in the way Whitney was written like a complete brainless idiot that doesn’t see what’s right in front of her goddamn face.
> 
> Also, I know it really depends on interpretation, but through my lens, when Jason’s all caught up in the chain and makes a grab for her, he’s not going for the locket. There’s a reason it fell. Am I reading too much into it? Almost 99% yes. Do I care? Not a single fraction of a bit.
> 
> So yeah, anyway. I have strong feelings about that scene.
> 
> Also, I want to take a moment to address what might be the least realistic part of the chapter, which is Clay taking the goddamn hint and leaving. As someone who has older siblings – two sisters who I adore, and would absolutely throw myself in front of a bus for – I like to think said siblings would know and trust me enough to take me at my word even in a situation as crazy and precarious as this one. That said, can we really know how we would respond to something until we’re there in the midst of it? Considering that’s an underlying theme (I hate that word, damn you endless literature classes) of this stupid story, probably not. So it might be stretching it a bit…but I really could not see any other way around the knothole that is Clay. Bless his puppy heart. 
> 
> And speaking of puppy hearts – why is Jason not chasing his ass down not the most unrealistic part? Because frankly even in canon I have a hard time believing he wouldn’t do whatever it took for Whitney to stay with him, and if she’s literally telling him she’ll do it of her own will if he lets her brother live…I just happened to give them relationship building to make that even more believable. 
> 
> This chapter wasn’t originally going to end here. I actually had continued on before the POV break and realized I didn’t like the structure and added the Jason part to be more present instead of reflective, which added five more pages and turned what I had into a BEAST. Which would have been fine, except I wasn’t close to done. So I’m cutting it here for the sake of updating.
> 
> If this was the resolution you wanted and don’t need/want anymore, I salute and thank you for your time and I love you. Though I do hope most of you stick around, because I promise I’ll make it worth your while.
> 
> -dirty wink-
> 
> As always, thank you all for the kudos and the comments that insert much-needed serotonin into my crazy brain. I love you guys so freaking much.
> 
> Until next time!


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